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Northern Alliance Breaks Through Toward Kabul
KABUL, Nov 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghan opposition forces backed by tanks and artillery broke through Taliban lines north of Kabul on Monday, routing the militia and blazing themselves a clear path to the capital, a spokesman said.
But the drive stopped short of Kabul as the forces appeared to be respecting U.S. and British appeals that they stay out of the capital while talks continue on formation of a broad-based administration, news agencies said.
The opposition Northern Alliance also chalked up new gains elsewhere, notably taking the western city of Herat, an ancient Silk Road trade stop and Afghanistan's wealthiest city with thriving links to Iran.
The Taliban deny losing control of the area.
Northern Alliance spokesman Waisudin Salik said the Taliban abandoned their positions north of Kabul in the face of a two-pronged advance by 7,000-8,000 opposition soldiers seeking the biggest prize of their campaign.
Alliance forces were almost completely in control of the Shomali plain outside Kabul and "there are no major obstacles remaining in front of us," Salik told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"Tonight we will get to the Kabul gate but we will not enter the city," he said as Northern Alliance forces closed to about six to nine miles outside of Kabul.
Residents here said that no Taliban soldiers were on the streets, deserted except for a few families seen leaving on foot.
"There was a significant withdrawal of [Taliban] forces towards Kandahar and towards the east," Northern Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah told reporters north of the capital.
"But that doesn't mean that Kabul is evacuated by the Taliban at the time that we are speaking," he added.
At night, tanks were heard moving through the city - shattered by 20 years of war and five weeks of U.S. air raids - but it was not clear whose they were.
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, confirmed that the opposition had broken through the militia's front lines 30 miles north of Kabul.
But he told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) that the report of Taliban evacuations from Kabul was "a lie and baseless."
"The Taliban have set up another front line which is being reinforced and the opposition advance has been halted," the Pakistan-based AIP quoted Zaeef as saying in Islamabad.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes, which stopped bombing the Taliban's front lines shortly before the opposition offensive began around midday, redirected their efforts to Taliban targets in the capital itself.
An AFP reporter here said three bombs struck shortly after dusk and witnesses reported one partially destroyed house, that of the Taliban's governor for Kabul, Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi. No casualties were reported.
The defeat of the Taliban in Kabul would be a huge symbolic victory for the U.S.-led drive to topple the regime for refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
Washington has been urging the Northern Alliance, a fractious coalition of mostly ethnic minorities, to surround but not enter Kabul to give them time to constitute a government acceptable to the dominant Pashtuns.
But Northern Alliance officials rejected arguments they were unwelcome in Kabul and have refused to rule out taking over the city captured by the Taliban in 1996, AFP reported.
However, MSNBC gave a contradictory report, saying that Alliance forces have stated they have no intention of entering Kabul.
The move towards the edge of Kabul on Monday followed a series of dramatic weekend victories for the opposition in the north, starting with Friday's capture of the key city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Taliban spokesmen said their militia had abandoned all northern provinces except for Kunduz, where some of their soldiers were making a desperate stand despite opposition claims the province had fallen.
The opposition has met relatively little resistance in the drive that has taken them from the far northeast to Herat in the west.
An opposition spokesman, Engineer Toryalai, said Herat fell after a popular uprising against the militia. He said most Taliban troops had withdrawn but there was still some scattered fighting.
"People have risen up against the Taliban. They control the city and by now our mujahedin who were in the surrounding mountains have also got to the city," Toryalai said.
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, however, officially denied the fall of Herat to the opposition forces, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported.
"Claims about the fall of Herat province are unfounded, the Taliban are in control there," said Al-Jazeera, quoting Taliban military sources.
This is an "official" denial of the Northern Alliance's claim to have captured Herat, the source said.
Afghanistan's northeastern town of Kunduz was also captured Monday, a member of the Northern Alliance told the official Iranian news agency (IRNA) Monday.
The spokesman of Abdul Rashid Dostam, a key opposition commander whose forces were among those that captured the strategically important city of Mazar-e-Sharif, said his forces had also "killed and captured a great number of Taliban forces."
"Dostam's forces were able to enter [and capture] the town of Kunduz early on Monday after six hours of clashes," said the spokesman, identified only as General Shafi.
While the Northern Alliance is calling the battlefield situation a rout, the Taliban say they are engaged in a "strategic withdrawal".
Taliban sources have said their plan was to pull back to a crescent of territory stretching from east of Kabul to the country's southern rim before the harsh Afghan winter sets in.
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