KHWAJA BAHAUDDIN, Nov 3: Fighting raged on Saturday in northern Afghanistan amid claims and counter-claims by the Northern Alliance and the Taliban over the key city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
First the Alliance claimed that it had taken the district of Aq-Kupruk, 70 kilometres south of Mazar-i-Sharif, after a three-hour battle which started on Friday night.
But Taliban ambassador to Islamabad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, said the militia’s forces had recaptured the district, leaving behind “heaps” of bodies of opposition forces.
If the opposition can hold onto Aq-Kupruk, it would mark their first significant advance towards Mazar-i-Sharif since the US airstrikes began last month.
Qari Qudratullah, a spokesman for the Northern Alliance’s commander Atta Mohammad, said “links” were established with Taliban fighters before the battle and 800 of them had defected.
“With their cooperation we were able to capture the district,” he said, adding that a further 200 Taliban fighters had been captured.
Another opposition spokesman said 80 Taliban soldiers had been killed and the Northern Alliance had advanced about 30 kilometres north towards Mazar-i-Sharif along the Balkhab river.
There has been mounting pressure on Taliban frontlines in the region as the Northern Alliance — backed by US air strikes — seeks to get closer to Mazar-i-Sharif.
With the first snows of the harsh Afghan winter already beginning to fall, time is running out for both the United States and the Alliance to make their move before extensive ground operations become almost impossible.
In addition to racing the snows, the Americans were facing time pressure on another front. They have said they are ready to press ahead with military action through Ramazan, but some allies have expressed misgivings.
US jets heavily bombarded Taliban frontlines north of Kabul late on Friday and early on Saturday, as well as militia positions in the northeast.
US planes later dropped around 10 bombs on Taliban positions on the northeastern frontline close to the border with Tajikistan.
WEATHER AN OBSTACLE: The US military is sending two new spy planes to help target the Taliban in Afghanistan, but freezing rain is preventing more elite American troops from entering the country, the Pentagon said on Friday.
A senior military officer also told reporters that “the noose was tightening” in US attempts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, but refused to predict when that might happen.
Navy Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, speaking as US warplanes bombed Taliban and Osama’s Al Qaeda guerillas, said two new spy planes, including the unmanned “Global Hawk”, would soon fly over Afghanistan.
He said the air force’s four-engine “JSTARS” surveillance and attack targeting aircraft would also go. The crew of that military version of a Boeing 707 can spot enemy vehicles and troops from very long range in foul weather.
But with the harsh Afghan winter moving in, Stufflebeem told a briefing that freezing rain was hampering efforts to fly additional elite US special forces troops into the country.
They would join fewer than 100 US troops already in the country spotting targets for airstrikes on the Taliban forces protecting Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul. They are also working with Northern Alliance forces trying to capture the cities.—AFP\Reuters
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