WASHINGTON/KABUL, 11 November — Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance said they swept into five more provinces in the north yesterday, a day after the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif, despite fierce Taleban resistance in some places.
“Today we have captured Samangan, Sara-e-Pol, Faryab and Jowzjan provinces,” ethnic Uzbek general, Abdul Rashid Dostum, told Reuters by satellite telephone, interrupting a strategy meeting with other commanders to take the call.
Other opposition commanders and spokesmen said the alliance had taken control of five northern provinces around Mazar-e-Sharif as well as an important river port just north of the city.
“We are advancing and we are able to capture more areas,” Muhammad Ashraf Nadeem, a spokesman for Northern Alliance commander Atta Muhammad told AFP from northern Afghanistan.
But as opposition tanks and troop reinforcements massed north of the Afghan capital, the United States issued a blunt warning to the Northern Alliance to stay out of Kabul itself.
Dostum said his troops were now advancing on western Badghis — a move that would allow him to join his troops with those of Mujahedeen general Ismail Khan near the strategic western city of Herat. His fighters were heading for the Badghis capital of Qala-e-Nau, Dostum said.
Khan’s fighters are poised just a couple of kilometers from the outskirts of that city. The capture of Qala-e-Nau would open the road toward the strategic city of Herat — for several years the stronghold of Khan until he was toppled by the Taleban in 1995. Herat is on the main road to southern Kandahar, power base of Taleban supreme leader Mulla Muhammad Omar.
“In some areas there was strong resistance, in others they fell without much fighting,” commander Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq told Reuters by telephone.
He said the Northern Alliance, a disparate collection of friends and former foes, killed some 500 Taleban in about 24 hours of fighting for the four provinces and the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, which fell on Friday evening.
Those numbers, as well as the gains, were impossible to verify and both sides often exaggerate battlefield death tolls.
Taleban officials denied they had lost the provinces, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said.
AIP reported yesterday that three consecutive days of American-led bombing flattened three villages in southern Afghanistan, where more than 300 civilians were feared to have been killed.
US warplanes bombed the villages in Khakrez district, 70 kilometers northwest of Kandahar.
It said rescuers had dug out 133 dead bodies from Shah Agha village.
All the 70 houses in the second village, Asmaan Zai, had been flattened, it was claimed. AIP said no information was available about the third village.
Early yesterday, on another front, a US B-52 aircraft carpet-bombed Taleban positions north of Kabul, a Reuters television cameraman said. A US bomber also dropped a cluster bomb on the Taleban positions near the Bagram air base on the front-lines north of Kabul.
The opposition forces also moved troops and tanks into position for an attack on Taleban forces defending Kabul.
A commander of the Afghan opposition coalition confirmed that the long-awaited push toward the capital, held by the Taleban since 1996, was imminent.
“We are getting ready for a battle to move toward Kabul,” the commander, Amanaulah Gozar, told AFP. As he was speaking, his troops were fueling three tanks and two armored personnel carriers.
The commander has a total of around 1,000 men under his command, seven tanks and 30 armored vehicles.
The opposition had captured many Taleban fighters, including Pakistanis, Muhaqiq said, adding that prisoners would not be harmed and Taleban who surrendered would be treated well. “We promise to treat our prisoners well,” he said. “We will keep them for future prisoner swaps,” he said.
Dostum said the northern border with Uzbekistan that snakes along the Amu Darya river — the Oxus of the ancients — remained closed but was under his control.
