1.30 pm
BAGRAM/JABAL-US-SARAJ - Forces of the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance said today they had taken the key northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and were massing farther south for an advance toward the capital, Kabul.
The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif would be the biggest breakthrough by Afghan fighters battling the fundamentalist Taleban militia
since US air strikes on Afghanistan began on October 7, and could provide US forces with a base for a ground offensive.
"The Alliance forces today took over the airport and entered the city," spokesman Ashraf Nadeem told Reuters by telephone. "Taleban forces are fleeing toward Kabul."
Northern Alliance forces led by ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum claim to have entered the ancient city that is the foundation of Taleban power in northern Afghanistan at 2.30am today, New Zealand time.
"We have taken Mazar-i-Sharif. The Taleban troops have fled. The only Taleban left behind are the prisoners we have taken. We have full control of the town. The airport is in our hands, too," Dostum said in an interview with CNN Turk.
The Taleban confirmed the opposition had entered the southern outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, but were regrouping their fighters outside the town, the Afghan Islamic Press quoted unidentified Taleban sources as saying.
An al-Jazeera television correspondent told the Qatar-based satellite channel from the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar that the Taleban denied they had lost Mazar-i-Sharif.
"We spoke to a Taleban official about one hour ago, and he denied the report. He said the claims by the Northern Alliance that they had occupied and were in control of the city...were lies," the correspondent said.
It was impossible to verify the claims from either side.
- REUTERS
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