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NORTHERN
ALLIANCE GAINS GROUND, SETS SIGHTS ON KABUL
KABUL,
Nov 10 (IslamOnline and News Agencies) - Anti-Taliban forces fanned out from the
key city of Mazar-e-Sharif after making new gains in north-central Afghanistan
on Saturday while stepping up pressure on the militia's hold on Kabul, 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, news agencies reported.
The
latest moves by the opposition forces came a day after they claimed their
biggest victory of the five-week-old U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan by
chasing the Taliban out of Mazar-e-Sharif without a fight.
Opposition
spokesmen said the Northern 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, told
Agence France-Presse (AFP) from northern Afghanistan.
The
Taliban have acknowledged abandoning Mazar-e-Sharif, capital of the 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-e
Pul, as well as another province to the west, Jauzjan.
Taliban
spokesmen also denied opposition claims that 1,500 of the militia's troops had
surrendered and that 200 had been killed in Mazar-e-Sharif. Abdul Henan Hemat,
head of the Taliban's Bakhter information agency, called the reports
"baseless".
"We
withdrew to the outside of Mazar-e-Sharif last night in order to avoid civilian
casualties and casualties to our forces," Hemat told AFP. "We managed
to get our artillery out of Mazar to a safe place in time."
Meanwhile,
the opposition, backed by heavy U.S. air strikes, seemed determined to follow up
its victory in Mazar-e-Sharif with moves to increase the threat to the Taliban's
hold on Kabul.
A
U.S. B-52 bomber carpet-bombed Taliban positions at Bagram air base 30 miles (50
kilometers) north of Kabul early 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. The airbase has been made unusable by bomb
craters, neglect and the threat of Taliban artillery from surrounding heights.
The
Northern Alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said they were
considering an attack despite a warning by U.S. 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 told a press conference in Dushanbe, the capital of
neighboring Tajikistan.
Powell
said 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 Pashtun, like the Taliban. The NA has been trying to secure a role
in a government that is scheduled to take hold if the Taliban are ousted from
power.
While
the United States and its Afghan allies sought to press their advantage, there
were new reports of civilian deaths in the U.S.-led campaign on Afghanistan.
The bodies of more than 130 Afghan civilians were found in three villages near
the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar after intense U.S. bombing raids,
the Pakistan-based AIP reported.
The
final toll from the villages in Khakrez district 45 miles (70 kilometers)
northwest of Kandahar could exceed 300 dead, AIP said.
Refugees
from the village of Dasht-i-Artshi in northeast Afghanistan said U.S. bombing of
a Taliban front line in the region had killed so many troops the bodies were
left to rot where they fell.
They
told AFP more than 100 bodies were seen left in the open.
The
Taliban have thus far claimed over a thousand civilian deaths. The U.S.
maintains its position that those claims are “too high.”
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