Northern Alliance gives Taliban three-day deadline

The Northern Alliance has given the Taliban three days to surrender the city of Kunduz or face an all-out assault.

Alliance spokesman Attiq Ullah, speaking from the northern city of Mazar-e-sharif, said fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden - mainly Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis - had been preventing the Taliban from giving up the besieged Northern stronghold.

Ullah has warned that "if there is a fight in Kunduz, it will be a bloody one - there are 3,000 foreign fighters and they have nowhere to go".

Alliance troops have encircled the city while US warplanes have been conducting intensive bombardment of the Taliban frontline positions.

Meanwhile, international negotiators have agreed to meet this weekend in Germany to discuss forming a new broad-based Afghan government.

More crack troops have also joined the hunt for Osama bin Laden.