Taliban ministers, officials surrender and freed

Associated Press WriterKANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Taliban defense and justice ministers and several other high-ranking figures of the ousted ruling militia surrendered to the new Afghan government but were allowed to go free, a Kandahar commander said Wednesday, despite U.S. requests for the handover of top Taliban leaders.

The White House would not comment, but Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier that U.S. officials wanted such top Taliban ministers turned over.

"Obviously individuals of that stature in the Taliban leadership are of great interest to the United States, and we would expect them to be turned over," Myers said Tuesday at the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to bolster the new government's authority in the capital, Prime Minister Hamid Karzai ordered armed men to leave Kabul's streets and return to their barracks within three days or be put in jail, Interior Minister Younus Qanooni said Wednesday.

The order allows only uniformed police on Kabul's streets, where fighters from various factions bristling with rocket launchers and automatic weapons have moved freely since the Nov. 13 departure of the Taliban. International peacekeepers in the city are also armed.

The Taliban leaders who reportedly surrendered included former Defense Minister Mullah Ubaidullah, who was close to Osama bin Laden and approved the establishment of bin Laden's terrorist training camps. He also is believed to have approved all al-Qaida operations and may know the whereabouts of bin Laden and Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Jalal Khan, a close associate of Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha, told The Associated Press that the surrendering Taliban leaders had met officials in government of the southern city and received general amnesty after recognizing Karzai's interim administration.

They have been allowed to go back to their homes and live with their families, Khan said.

"Those men who have surrendered are our brothers and we have allowed them to live in a peaceful manner. They will not be handed over to America," Khan said. "However, they will not participate in politics."

Also reported to be among those who surrendered was Nooruddin Turabi -- the one-eyed, one-legged justice minister who authored some of the Taliban's most repressive edicts, particularly those affecting women. He also established the feared religious police, who roamed the streets beating women considered not properly covered, as well as men who trimmed their beards or cut their hair in violation of Turabi's interpretation of Islam.

Others are Abdul Haq, former security chief of Herat province, an ancient cultural crossroads where the Taliban's crude, extreme Islamic rule was never well-accepted, the minister of mines, Mullah Saadudin, and senior officials Raees Abdul Wahid, Abdul Salam Rakti, and Mohammad Sadiq.

Asked if it wasn't a security risk to leave top Taliban officials at large and free to regroup, Khan said, "We don't find any danger from them."

He said the officials were let go on condition they swear to obey the interim government and recognize its sovereignty, which they did, he said.

"From the very start we have said when they surrender, and give up their guns and their cars, they will be given amnesty," Khan said.

Intelligence Ministry officials in Kabul would not comment Wednesday on the reported surrender and amnesties. In Kandahar, Khan said that they were in line with general policy granting amnesty to Taliban who recognize Karzai's government.

Also Wednesday, the British military spokesman in Afghanistan, Maj. Guy Richardson, said the bomb-damaged main runway of Kabul's airport could be cleared of mines and reopened by early next week to give a boost to relief and military efforts.

Negotiations on the surrender of ex-Taliban figures have recently frustrated the U.S.-led coalition, especially the apparent escape last week of Omar while he had reportedly been surrounded in the mountainous Baghran district by anti-Taliban fighters.

Marine Lt. James Jarvis, in a daily briefing to reporters at the Kandahar airport, where more than 300 al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners are being detained, voiced no objection the release of the former Taliban officials.

"We're not in the business of determining who should and should not be in custody right now," Jarvis said.

In Washington, Myers said Tuesday that U.S. troops wrapping up operations at the bombed-out Tora Bora complex near the border with Pakistan had seized two senior al-Qaida members, their computers and cell phones.

Besides the computers and phones, "some small arms and training documents were also found," Myers said. "We're exploiting those as we speak." The Americans are looking for clues to future al-Qaida operations and organizational details.

American operations have shifted from Tora Bora to the Zawar Kili area around Khost in Paktia province, site of a former al-Qaida training camp and an assembly area for possible attempts by vanquished fighters to flee into Pakistan. U.S. special forces teams are on the ground in the area, where a Green Beret soldier was killed in a reported ambush last Friday.

The U.S. military has been targeting pockets of Taliban and al-Qaida resistance as commanders shift their focus from an all-out search for bin Laden, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.