Northern Alliance

"If there is evidence against him, he must face justice. Omar will not be granted amnesty and that he will face the consequences of his failure to renounce terrorism."

• Hamid Karzai, Chief of Afghan Interim Administration, Quoted in AFP

"The Taliban have completely surrendered in Kandahar and they have laid down their arms…There has been no resistance and Kandahar city is completely peaceful" after being handed over to a shura, or tribal council…After agreement with tribal leaders and commanders, Mulla Omar has disappeared from Kandahar and it is not known where he has gone."

• Haji Bashir Ahmed, Pashtun tribal leader, Kabul, December 7

"I believe nobody will be opposed to the transition arrangement reached in Bonn…General Dostum has not gone out from our alliance."

• Yunis Qanuni, Interior Minister of Afghanistan's new Interim Administration, New Delhi, December 7

"We have staged a mopping-up operation to clear remaining parts of Tora Bora…Osama was not in Tora Bora during the past days of fighting and if he had been, he has probably slipped into Pakistan."

• Mohammad Habeel, Spokesperson, Northern Alliance, Melawa, December 7

"The Afghan people cannot forget the support provided to them by Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of their country… but the support by some Pakistani people to the Taliban was wrong… I cannot understand why Arabs and Pakistanis are fighting and getting killed for Afghanistan inside Afghanistan… We would love to have good relations with Pakistan… The Bonn meeting is an attempt to find out a mechanism for peace in Afghanistan. Only Afghans have the right to choose their rulers, but I am not dissatisfied with the process of Bonn. If any one wants to impose an outside ruler, it will not be accepted by the Afghan people… Why should the Afghan population suffer after the elimination of al-Qaeda and Taliban… All militants should leave Afghanistan and no country should build its bases in Afghanistan. We should build our army. We should rebuild our destroyed country. We should rely on ourselves and not on international forces… We need help from the UN and others to fight interference in our country… Our friends insist that they will not forget us… We have to open a new page with all our neighbours, especially Pakistan, which had helped us a lot during our immigration and struggle… If he's arrested, bin Laden will be judged because he is responsible for all the current problems of Muslims in European countries and in the United States. Bin Laden has committed a crime. (If arrested) he will be delivered to the parties concerned."

• Burhanuddin Rabbani, President of Afghanistan, Dubai, November 27

"It's over… There is no more fighting. But we will wait until tomorrow to enter because we fear that some of the bodies of the Taliban foreigners may be bobby-trapped with grenades."

• Mohammed Nuri, Northern Alliance Commander, Qala-I-Jangi, November 27

"All of Kunduz is in our control."

-- Daoud Khan, Commander, Northern Alliance, Bangi, November 26

"As a whole...Kunduz is liberated.''

-- Abdullah Abdullah, Acting Foreign Minister, Northern Alliance, November 26

"We have captured Kunduz and there is no fighting."

- Alauddin, Northern Alliance Spokesperson, quoted in Reuters, November 26

"This (Bonn) meeting is not a summit council. It is a summit of representatives. There are no leaders of parties in Afghanistan… The main councils and meetings will take place inside Afghanistan and senior officials must participate to take the main decisions."

- Burhanuddin Rabbani, President of Afghanistan, Abu Dhabi, November 26

"We entered the town (Khanabad) from four directions and have encountered no resistance. All the Taliban have surrendered."

-- Sadreddine, Commander, northern Alliance, Khanabad, November 25

"Taliban soldiers are laying down weapons and surrendering before the forces loyal to Northern Alliance commanders in Kunduz."

-- Northern Alliance Spokesperson, Islamabad, November 25

"We have entered Kunduz because it is part of the Northern Zone and Dostum should not send his forces to take control of the province."

-- Daoud Khan, Commander, Northern Alliance, Quoted in BBC Persian Service, November 25

"I am the military commander for northern Afghanistan and every development is talking place under my command."

-- Gen. Rashid Dostum, Northern Alliance Commander, November 25

"Although they (foreign mercenaries) have committed some war crimes in Afghanistan they come under the general amnesty that we have declared and they are pardoned if they put their guns down… The foreigners will be handed over to the United Nations… I have already asked (UN envoy) Francesc Vendrell to pass my message to (UN Secretary General) Kofi Annan to find a solution for the foreigner issue on an international level… They should not be treated as terrorists or criminals because they have been cheated… they had been cheated by the Taliban and taken to the frontlines… The elements of the Taliban are not criminals and they don't have an obvious guilt… They can be part of the interim government if they are selected through the Loya Jirga and people select them as individuals, not as party members… I have instructed all the commanders of the United Front in Mazar-i-Sharif, in Kunduz and in Takhar not to harass or harm or vex the war prisoners whether they are Afghan Taliban or foreign fighters."

"I will accept the decision of the (Bonn) meeting. I have no personal ambitions."

-- Burhanuddin Rabbani, President of Afghanistan, Quoted in Daily Telegraph, November 25

"The process is on…I see no problem as far as the foreign fighters are concerned. They will also surrender to the Northern Alliance. Some of them have already given themselves up."

-- Spokesperson for the Governor of Kunduz, November 24

"The Taliban would be allowed to go home while the foreign fighters would be handed over to the UN."

-- Gen. Rashid Dostum, Northern Alliance Commander, Mazar-e-Sharif, November 24

"People rose up against the Taliban and liberated the area. The Taliban tried to counter attack and retake the area but they couldn't…A district between Spin Boldak and Kandahar has been liberated and presumably the road from Kandahar to Pakistan has been cut off."

-- Hamid Karzai, Pakhtoon tribal leader, Kandahar, November 24

"… Please leave us alone, we can make our own destiny, our own future, our own government… If the government and Pakistani generals continue to meddle in Afghanistan, our tragedy will be prolonged… Although we highly appreciate the effort of the international community to fight terrorism in Afghanistan... We would appreciate if they would recognize that Pakistan was the prime aggressor in Afghanistan and we should not reward the aggressor…"

-- Ahmad Wali Masood, Ambassador of the Northern Alliance in the United Kingdom, October 8, 2001

"Our security sources have not come across such a sign [of the presence of US/UK Special forces] to indicate that they are here [in Afghanistan]… We can neither confirm nor deny the report.

-- Sayed Najibullah Hashimi, Spokesman Northern Alliance, September 29, 2001

"Even if the whole of Afghanistan is devastated we won't hand him over until there is a solid proof against him…"

-- Mullah Mohammad Hassan, Representative, Paktika Province, Afghanistan, September 17, 2001

"We have 15,000 people on the ground ready to fight the Taleban… So, this group needs to be involved… Our hold spreads to almost 25 percent of the geographical areas… They are saying that they would hand over bin Laden to a Islamic country, but there is no Islamic country that would agree to take bin Laden. This is just for buying time… The international community should put effective and bold pressure on Pakistan, Taleban's main backer, to immediately cease their aggression in Afghanistan and withdraw their armed personnel from Afghanistan… The International community must help us to set up a multi-ethnic, broad-based and fully representative government."

-- A G Ravan Farhadi, Ambassador of the Rabbani Government of Afghanistan, to the United Nations, September 17, 2001