KABUL, Nov 7: Anti-Taliban forces backed by US warplanes on Wednesday claimed to have made their biggest push of the month-old war here, moving within striking distance of the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The opposition Northern Alliance said a series of victories over the last two days had brought it seven kilometres from Mazar-i-Sharif, whose airport makes it a key staging and supply centre in the north.

With a bloody battle looming to try to dislodge the well-entrenched Taliban, who have held the city since 1998, opposition fighters said they were fortifying their positions before renewing the assault.

“God willing we will soon enter Mazar-i-Sharif,” said Qari Qudratullah, a spokesman for Northern Alliance commander Atta Mohammed. “Very soon you will hear the good news that we have liberated it.”

Taliban officials denied the opposition claims, but have acknowledged suffering setbacks in districts south of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, on Tuesday.

Mazar-i-Sharif was one of three main front-line areas in the north targeted by the Americans and their Afghan allies.

In Washington, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Peter Pace said US special forces troops on the ground had reported cavalry charges by opposition forces in the fighting for Mazar-i-Sharif.

“And this is opposition forces riding horseback into combat against tanks and armoured personnel carriers,” Pace said.

The US-led offensive is also focused on northeastern Afghanistan, where a battle is being waged for control of supply routes from Tajikistan, and above Kabul in the east, in preparation for an opposition move on the capital.

Qudratullah said opposition forces used tanks and rocket-propelled grenades in their drive toward Mazar-i-Sharif which took them on Wednesday through Sholgera district 60km to the southwest.

He said 250 Taliban had been captured and another 500 surrendered as opposition troops moved through the once heavily defended area while US warplanes kept up their constant pounding of the Islamic militia’s positions.

Taliban officials, who asked not to be named, said the militia were planning a major counter-attack to recover lost ground, but they denied the extent of the opposition’s gains.

“We have full control over Sholgera and Keshendeh districts. The opposition claim is a lie and part of its propaganda campaign,” an unidentified Taliban official was quoted as saying by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.

The ease with which the opposition swept through Sholgera, if confirmed, would suggest the Taliban might be pulling back to make a stand at Mazar-i-Sharif, a city of two million people devastated by two decades of war.

The northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan have shaped up as a crucial battlefield in the US campaign to topple the Taliban regime.

The provinces border Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, from where supplies and US troops could enter Afghanistan. The capture of Mazar-i-Sharif would also split Taliban bastions in the country’s northeast and the west.

Further to the east, US warplanes kept up their attacks on Taliban positions north of Taloqan city near the border with Tajikistan.

The first bombs fell just before 8:00am (0830 PST) on targets that were hit in six earlier attacks.—AFP