“In late November 2001 the imminent fall of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz alarmed the Pakistani military regime. Thousands of Taliban and foreign fighters had retreated to Kunduz from areas seized by the Northern Alliance. Hundreds of Pakistani military officers, ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] advisers, and foreign fighters, including Pakistani volunteers, had been trapped, raising fears of a massacre. Before the city fell to the Northern Alliance on November 25 [2001], a series of nighttime flights had evacuated the Pakistanis from there. The reports of the evacuation were vehemently denied at first. But American intelligence and military officers later acknowledged that the Pakistanis were indeed rescued, with the approval of the Bush administration, and an unknown number of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters also escaped.”
– Deepak Tripathi, Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pages 50-51