U.S. Mulls Bombing Break as Afghans Talk

Nov. 20 -- The United States has agreed to stop bombing locations around the besieged city of Kunduz if it improves the chances of a Taliban surrender — but has refused to do so if it would allow Taliban or al Qaeda leaders to flee Afghanistan.

"If the opposition would ask us not to bomb a specific facility or location so they could continue discussion, we'll certainly honor that," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said today at the Pentagon, the first time U.S. officials have said they might ease the airstrikes.

A tense cease-fire is under way in Kunduz while Taliban and al Qaeda fighters holding the northern city negotiate with Northern Alliance leaders.

The statement by the Pentagon spokesman comes on a day when the diplomatic effort to replace the collapsing Taliban and begin the economic reconstruction of the war-ravaged country seemed to take major strides.

The U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan said that a provisional government should be established immediately to run the country until a broad-based government can be established, a process that could be drawn out over months in this country, which has been roiling in war and civil conflicts for more than two decades.

"Let's try and go straight to the small authority that will be the provisional administration in Afghanistan and then go to the other steps, " the envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said after meeting U.N. Security Council members. "I very, very much hope that out of this meeting, which is not, hopefully, symbolic, we will take some concrete decisions and steps."

Brahimi was also responding to comments from Northern Alliance leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who said today he would take part in the Berlin talks, but dismissed them as largely symbolic. Rabbani said the real decisions would take place in Afghanistan.

Brahimi said that before a large-scale Loya Jirga — an assembly of elders and ethnic leaders — is convened to draw up a constitution and create a government for post-Taliban Afghanistan, a smaller emergency assembly should be held to approve a transition government and a set of laws to ensure order.