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by Mohammad Bashir
KABUL, July 29 (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban militia cut a major opposition supply route as fierce battles raged for a second day Saturday in northern Baghlan province, anti-Taliban officials conceded. Calling himself only Abdullah, a spokesman for the anti-Taliban military commander Ahmad Shah Masood said that fighting was continuing around Nahreen district, which the Taliban captured on Friday. The spokesman said the Islamic militia fighters launched a dawn attack against Masood supporters Saturday and drove them out of the old parts of Nahreen city. Abdullah said that with the loss of Nahreen district, the supply route from the Masood mountain base in the Panjshir valley to Tajikistan's border en-route to Afghanistan's Takhar province had been cut off. He said Taliban jets had carried out five sorties, inflicting military and civilian losses on the Masood side. "In their morning attack, the Taliban captured the old city also," he said. "At the moment the supply route is cut off." The spokesman said the Taliban would win international condemnation in return for their "temporary military victory". Last month the UN Security Council warned the Afghan warring factions to abstain from any renewed fighting and turn to a negotiated solution. The latest round of fighting took place while the UN secretary general's special envoy for Afghanistan is currently in the region as part of his shuttle diplomacy to find a solution. On Thursday, he met with the Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel with the hope that the summer offensive would not be resumed. Abdullah conceded on Friday that the Taliban had captured the whole of Nahreen city, but claimed they were later repulsed from parts of it. He said the Taliban were also preparing to attack the opposition in the nearby Ishkamish district through Kunduz province bordering Tajikistan. A Taliban official, requesting anonymity, blamed the new fighting on Masood supporters, who have been holding out against the militia from their northeastern mountain positions. They were seeking to manipulate the gap created by the arrest of a key pro-Taliban commander, Bashir Baghlani in Baghlan, the official said. Abdullah added that the Taliban arrested Baghlani on Tuesday and transferred him to Kandahar for opposing their plans to use his territory to attack Masood loyalists in Nahreen. The militia mouthpiece Radio Shariat said Ghulam Sakhi had been appointed in place of Bashir Baghlani, an ex-commander of the former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Islamic militia, after their sudden rise from religious schools in southern Afghanistan and Pakistan, took Kabul in 1996 and now control most of the war-torn country under an ultra-puritanical interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Early this month, the Taliban and Masood supporters fought two fierce battles just north of capital in which hundreds of fighters from both sides were killed. |
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