Taliban offers conditional surrender

BANGI, Afghanistan -- The Taliban offered Sunday to surrender their last northern stronghold if Arab and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden in the city are spared, an anti-Taliban commander said. The northern alliance, meanwhile, agreed to a conference on neutral ground to plan a multiethnic government. \nThe offer to surrender Kunduz came after U.S. bombers unleashed their heaviest strikes so far on the city. Warplanes were also reported in action near the Taliban southern stronghold of Kandahar and areas of eastern Afghanistan where bin Laden is believed to maintain camps and hide-outs. \nIn Washington, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the advances on the ground were reducing bin Laden's room to maneuver. "We think that the more that we are stripping away his protection ... that we're beginning to narrow his possibilities for hiding," Rice told CNN's Late Edition. \nSecretary of State Colin Powell said the northern alliance had agreed to take part in U.N.-brokered talks with other Afghan factions about forming a new power-sharing government in Afghanistan. \nThe head of the alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, said Saturday his group supported such a conference but wanted it to take place in the capital, Kabul. The United Nations favors a neutral site. \nFollowing talks in Tashkent, Uzbekistan with U.S. envoy James F. Dobbins, the alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah, said the meeting "will be heldoutside Afghanistan," possibly as early as this week.