16:15 GMT. A SkyNews reporter was told by one of Northern Alliance General Doud’s forward battlegroup commanders that as his forces rolled into Konduz this morning, they were surprised by the lack of hardcore Al Qaeda fighters. They then discovered from locals that for the last two nights, large Antonov transport aircraft have been landing at the airstrip in the isolated Taliban pocket and airlifting out the trapped foreign Al Qaeda fighters, along with their weapons, flying them to safety under the very noses of the Northern Alliance and Americans.
If this report is true,and the hardcore of Al Qaeda personnel in Konduz have slipped away to points unknown, it is a major setback for the ‘war against terrorism’.
