KABUL/WASHINGTON, 9 November — The beleaguered Taleban were ordered to close their diplomatic mission in the port city of Karachi yesterday by Pakistani authorities and they suffered a military blow when US B-52 bombers launched their heaviest bombardment yet of the battlefront south of Mazar-e-Sharif. At least 85 pro-Taleban Pakistani volunteers — including their commander, Qari Abu Muhammad Ashraf — died in the explosions. The opposition Northern Alliance soon afterward claimed it was within striking range of the city.
In separate raids on Kabul, another 71 civilians perished, according to Iranian television reports.
Earlier, after meeting French leaders in Paris, Pakistani President Musharraf repeated to journalists that a continuation of the bombing campaign during the holy month of Ramadan risked causing "negative fall-out in the entire Muslim world".
"We have asked the Taleban to withdraw their personnel from the Afghan consulate in Karachi," Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said at his daily press briefing back in Islamabad. "The consulate will not be functioning," he told reporters. "I have no further comment on that for the moment," Khan said firmly parrying questions whether the Taleban’s other consulates in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Peshawar or their embassy in Islamabad were the next to be shut, or what caused Pakistan to make the decision.
Mulla Abdul Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taleban’s ambassador in Pakistan, had earlier confirmed in Islamabad that the Taleban had received the closure orders from the Pakistani government.
President Pervez Musharraf said in Paris the consulate in the port city was "not serving any purpose" and was "even having negative effects".
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that the United States could turn its attention to Iraq after achieving the goals of its military campaign in Afghanistan.
He said that after the goals of Operation Enduring Freedom are achieved, the United States will turn its attention to terrorism throughout the world.
"And nations such as Iraq, which have tried to pursue weapons of mass destruction, should not think that we will not be concerned about these activities, and will not turn our attention to them," Powell pointed out.
The Pakistani fighters killed by US bombs were from the Harakat Jehad-e-Islami group and had been fighting the Northern Alliance on the front-line for the past week until US planes hit their positions in the Dara-e-Souf Valley, he said. The opposition were dug in at the village of Chishma-e-Shifa, about 22 kilometers south of the city and a bloody battle was looming as the Taleban rushed to reinforce their front-line.
Thousands of Arab and Pakistani fighters are reported to be deployed in support of the Taleban militia in Mazar-e-Sharif and thousands more were reported to be flooding into Afghanistan. Pakistani officials in the North West Frontier Province said that more than 1,500 tribesmen and a convoy of 25 trucks with food and supplies crossed into Afghanistan to join the Taleban.
The Taleban are still capable of mounting a determined defense of Mazar-e-Sharif, a city of 200,000 people which they have held for three years, opposition officials conceded.
But heavy US airstrikes, guided by American commandos on the ground, have weakened Taleban moral and given the Northern Alliance a chance, said Qari Qudratullah, a spokesman for alliance commander Atta Muhammad.
A senior US military official confirmed the opposition had gained some ground, but said the situation remained "very fluid."
The Taleban, meanwhile, have denied that the Northern Alliance was within striking distance of Mazar-e-Sharif, claiming instead to have repulsed three attacks to the southwest.
In London President Musharraf held talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday after he renewed calls for a quick end to the US-led assault on Afghanistan. Blair, however, insisted the airstrikes would continue through Ramadan.
In Jalalabad, the Taleban said they had arrested 20 Afghan men accused of spying for the United States and trying to provoke a rebellion. Taleban intelligence sources told AFP the men included two senior opposition commanders, Abdul Manan Bagarwal and another man identified only as Shahraz.
A former Afghan deputy foreign minister, Hamid Karzai, currently on a clandestine mission inside Afghanistan to rally support against the Taleban, has called for American help to fight the Arabs in his embattled country.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported Karzai’s interview yesterday from a location, he claimed, was somewhere inside Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgon province and that he was "doing absolutely fine".
Karzai was earlier reported to be on the run from Taleban forces after they claimed to have captured 25 of his companions in Dehrawad hills in Uruzgon province. Talking to BBC, Karzai said to have come under attack, not by Taleban but Arabs. Thousands of Arab followers of Osama Bin Laden are believed to be in the Afghan militia ranks.
According to a report, the Taleban have set up "suicide death squads" made up mainly of "Afghan Arabs" to attack US and British ground forces in a future phase of the US-led campaign.
Dozens of suicide commandos have been trained in the use of car bombs and light aircraft in camps of prime terror suspect Bin Laden in Jalalabad, Khost and around the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar.
