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KABUL, Nov 10: Anti-Taliban forces fanning out from Mazar-i-Sharif made new gains in north-central Afghanistan on Saturday while stepping up pressure on the militia’s hold on Kabul, a spokesmen said.
But as opposition tanks and troop reinforcements massed north of the Afghan capital, the United States issued a blunt warning to the Northern Alliance to stay out of Kabul itself.
The latest moves by the Northern Alliance came a day after they claimed their biggest victory of the five-week-old US-led offensive in Afghanistan by capturing Mazar-i-Sharif.
Opposition spokesmen said the alliance had taken control of three north-central provinces around Mazar-i-Sharif as well as an important river port just north of the city.
“We are advancing and we are able to capture more areas,” Mohammad Ashraf Nadeem, a spokesman for Northern Alliance commander Atta Mohammad, said.
The Taliban have acknowledged abandoning Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province and a strategic land bridge for the delivery of supplies and troops from Uzbekistan to the north.
But the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted an unnamed Taliban official as denying reports the ruling militia had lost the two other provinces, Samangan and Sar-i-Pul, as well as another province to the west, Jauzjan.
A Taliban spokesmen also denied opposition claims that 1,500 of the militia’s troops had surrendered and 200 had been killed in Mazar-i-Sharif. Abdul Henan Hemat, head of the Taliban’s Bakhter information agency, called the reports “baseless”.
“We withdrew to the outside of Mazar-i-Sharif last night in order to avoid civilian casualties and casualties to our forces,” Hemat said. “We managed to get our artillery out of Mazar to a safe place in time.”
While the United States and its Afghan allies sought to press their advantage, there were new reports of civilian deaths in the US bombing.
The bodies of more than 130 Afghan civilians were found in three villages near the Kandahar after intense US bombing raids.
The death toll from the villages in Khakrez district, 70 kilometres northwest of Kandahar, could exceed 300 dead.
ASSAULT ON KABUL: The opposition, backed by heavy US airstrikes, seemed determined to follow up its victory in Mazar-i-Sharif with moves to increase the threat to the Taliban’s hold on Kabul.
A US B-52 bomber carpet-bombed Taliban positions at Bagram air base, 50kms north of Kabul, early on Saturday, witnesses said.
“We are getting ready for a battle to move towards Kabul,” opposition commander Amanaulah Gozar said at his base at Jabal Seraj, north of where thousands of Taliban troops were guarding access routes to the capital.
Another commander, Yusuf Khan, said several hundred troops and a number of tanks had been sent towards the Bagram base, made unusable by bomb craters, neglect and the threat of Taliban artillery from surrounding heights.
The commander has a total of around 1,000 men under his command, seven tanks and 30 armoured vehicles.
“With the help of God we will start the fight as soon as possible,” he said.
He later begun moving his forces towards the frontlines, but said that they had received orders to remain in slightly withdrawn positions. Rumours, which frequently turn out to be true, suggested the offensive could begin as early as Sunday.
At least 10 tanks were already positioned less than one kilometre from the frontlines near Rabat, in the southwest of the Shomali plains north of Kabul.
“We arrived yesterday evening from Jabal Seraj with sufficient fuel and ammunition to mount an attack,” Sher Dil, a tank commander, said.
The tank was hidden behind a farm wall with its cannon pointed towards clearly visible Taliban positions.
“If we need more fuel and ammunition we will take them (from the Taliban),” the officer said. “I am ready to go as soon as I get the order.”
Overnight, a photographer saw about 30 aging Soviet-made tanks, each carrying around 10 men, crossing the River Kokcha at Dash-i-Qalah, in northeastern Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance’s spokesman, Abdullah Abdullah, said they were considering an attack despite a warning by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that it would be badly received by the capital’s residents.
“The liberation of Kabul from the Taliban would have great political and military significance,” Abdullah said at a press conference in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
Powell said on Friday that if and when the Taliban were driven out of Kabul it should be an “open city” until an interim regime was installed.
“To be frank, there would probably be a lot of tension within the city if the Northern Alliance were to come in force with a population in Kabul that may not at the moment be friendly to (them),” he said.
The Northern Alliance is made up mainly of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks while Kabul is predominantly Pakhtoon, like the Taliban.—AFP
