Taleban flee as Northern Alliance reach Kabul front lines

13 Nov, 2001 03:01 AM5 mins to read

By JUSTIN HUGGLER

KALAFGAN, Afghanistan - The Taleban were facing a devastating series of defeats yesterday as Northern Alliance forces attacked the front lines north of Kabul for the first time yesterday.

The Northern Alliance now claims it has captured almost half of Afghanistan in four days of sensational advances.

Backed by B52 bombers and F18 fighters, Northern Alliance tanks and soldiers stormed Taleban positions north of Kabul yesterday.

Witnesses said they saw black-turbanned Taleban soldiers fleeing in pick-up trucks, and F18s diving out of the skies and opening fire on them.

Tanks were seen descending en masse towards the front line from positions inside the Panjshir valley.

Witnesses also said they saw a small group of Western soldiers fighting side by side with the Northern Alliance.

The Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said yesterday that British special forces played a crucial role in assisting the Northern Alliance advances. American special forces are also helping helping Alliance forces.

The Taleban seem to be melting like snow before the US and Northern Alliance onslaught. But all the Alliance's victories so far have been in areas populated by ethnic minorities, where the mostly Pashtun Taleban are loathed, and Taleban resistance is expected to be much tougher in the Pashtun-dominated south.

There have been reports of music, banned by the Taleban, playing for the first time in newly liberated cities, and men queuing at the barber's to have their regulation-length beards shaved off.

It appeared yesterday that Taleban forces may have been slaughtered in the central province of Bamiyan, where the Hazara population were persecuted by the Taleban for their Shia religious beliefs.

"There have been very many casualties," said Ahmad Bahram, a spokesman for the Hazara faction in the Northern Alliance, speaking of Taleban dead. "Their bodies are just lying in the road."

If all its claims of advances are true, in the four days since Mazar-i-Sherif fell the Northern Alliance appears to have gone from an all but defeated army controlling ten per cent of Afghanistan, to controlling almost all of the north, thanks to the US bombing.

The Alliance claimed yesterday it had advanced 5 km beyond Baghram airport where the Taleban lines used to overlook the runway, and captured the district of Qarabagh, 24 km from the capital.

But US President George Bush has urged the Northern Alliance not to enter Kabul itself until a new national government can be formed, but Alliance commanders outside the city yesterday were shouting: "To Kabul! To Kabul!" and there are increasing signs that the Alliance may be contemplating trying to capture the capital.

The US fears a bloodbath if the Alliance enter Kabul, where the 50,000 who died while Alliance commanders fought each other over the city between 1992 and 1996 are not forgotten.

Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Alliance's Foreign Minister, said: "We would also prefer to achieve a broad political agreement between all parties before moving into Kabul, but we do not commit ourselves to this if there is a political vacuum in Kabul."

In the west, Mohammed Abil, an alliance spokesman, claimed forces commanded by Ismail Khan, a hero of the mujahedin resistance against the Soviets, had captured the main city of Herat, which could open the way for a possible offensive against the Taleban's spiritual home in the southern city of Qandahar.

Iranian radio reported that some Taleban forces were fleeing the city, while others were surrendering. The Taleban Information Ministry said it was "possible" the city had fallen, but other Taleban sources denied that it had been captured, claiming that some of Mr Khan's men infiltrated the city and attempted a coup, which had been defeated.

There is much confusion over conflicting claims from the Northern Alliance and the Taleban, which are impossible to verify in many areas cut off to reporters.

If the reported fall of Herat is confirmed, there will be a dramatic homecoming for Mr Khan, who became a hero to many in Afghanistan for leading the city's resistance against the Soviets. Mr Khan marched against the Taleban in Kandahar a few years ago, but retreated.

He later made a daring escape from Taleban house arrest with the help of his followers, and fled to Iran.

The Iranian state news agency reported that the heavily fortified city of Kunduz, one of the Taleban's last strongholds in the north, had fallen yesterday, but there was no confirmation of the claim.

Kunduz is one of few cities in the north with a majority Pashtun population, and prevents Northern Alliance forces in the north-east linking up with those who took Mazar and creating a continuous swathe of Northern Alliance territory.

The Northern Alliance claims that it is encountering the hardest resistance not from Afghan Taleban forces, but from foreign volunteers from Arab countries, Pakistan and Chechnya, who they say are followers of Osama bin Laden.

The Alliance was yesterday broadcasting radio appeals to the Afghan Taleban to arrest the foreign fighters and hand them over alive.

"We want to take the foreigners alive to show who is fighting against us," said an Alliance spokesman.

- INDEPENDENT

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