DUSHANBE. Nov 23 (Interfax-AVN) - Over the next few hours, the Northern Alliance will launch a massive attack on the city of Konduz in northern Afghanistan, an anti-Taliban media outlet told Interfax.
General Mohammed Fahim's forces including tanks, artillery and massive weapons were brought to Konduz on Friday, a representative of the outlet said. The militants besieged in Konduz have failed to comply with a surrender arrangement.
Up to 5,000 foreign mercenaries are preventing Taliban fighters from putting down their arms and leaving the city through designated corridors.
The mercenaries, including Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis, declared that they preferred death to capitulation and threatened to execute those who refused to retaliate "as long as their bullets last," the representative noted. In several instances people were killed when they showed readiness to leave the city.
The assault of Konduz will be long and hard, but the outcome has been predetermined. The Northern Alliance "will eliminate the terrorist group," he said.
Around 20,000 supporters of the Taliban and foreign mercenaries remain in the city, according to some sources.