KABUL/LONDON, 12 November — Will the Northern Alliance overrun Kabul without the blessing of the United States, or hold off as requested — while diplomatic disputes are resolved by the US and its allies — and risk a diminished role in a post-Taleban administration? That is the question now that the Northern Alliance claims it has advanced across northern Afghanistan and has control over half of the country. The United States has made no bones about its disquiet at the prospect of its Afghan allies triumphantly entering Kabul alone, a city they ran and ruined for four years in the nineties. The US is hoping instead that the capital be left alone until an interim administration can be installed. However, with the Northern Alliance military advance gaining momentum by the hour, and with little chance of an alternative Kabul administration being brought together in the very near future, the situation is likely to remain tense and uncertain.
The Taleban in the process lost their main fighting force.
At the same time, Britain’s Defense Minister Geoff Hoon announced that British ground troops had been deployed in Afghanistan.
“I can certainly confirm that there are members of Britain’s armed forces on the ground in northern Afghanistan liaising with the Northern Alliance, providing advice and assistance,” Hoon told BBC Radio 4’s “The World this Weekend” program. “Basically all we can say is that there is a small number acting in a liaison and advice capacity,” he said. The British troops are most likely members of the elite Special Air Service (SAS).
Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said his forces were now advancing toward the strategic province of Kunduz, which commands routes to the central Asian republic of Tajikistan, and were on the outskirts of the western city of Herat — one of the largest in Afghanistan.
“The importance of this big defeat for the Taleban is not only that they have lost large areas, but they have lost their main fighting force,” he told a news conference.
“The total number of Taleban fighting forces...other than the local forces in northern Afghanistan was over 15,000,” he said.
“There have been dozens of foreign prisoners.” He said the opposition now holds 50 percent of the country — compared with less than 10 percent just three days ago.
“For the first time there is a unique opportunity for achieving peace in Afghanistan... and also to help the people of Afghanistan to enjoy self-determination,” he said.
Asked whether there was a chance Northern Alliance forces just north of Kabul would move forward toward the capital in coming days, Abdullah said: “We do not rule it out.”
He also declined to rule out moving into Kabul itself if there was a political vacuum in the capital.
“A political vacuum is a different situation and we have to consult with our Afghan partners and our international partners, mainly the UN,” he said.
Opposition commanders have said they are preparing for an offensive on Kabul following sweeping Northern Alliance gains in the north of the country.
However, President George W. Bush cautioned on Saturday: “We will encourage our friends to head south ... but not into the city of Kabul itself. We believe we can accomplish our military missions by that strategy.”
Abdullah announced a string of advances, saying his forces had taken the city of Bamiyan to the northeast of Kabul.
“Our forces are... gradually making an advance toward Kunduz,” he told the news conference in Jabal-us-Saraj.
He said the Taleban were now encircled and trapped in Kunduz province, and added that his fighters were in contact with Taleban forces inside the city — a hint that he was hoping for defections to hasten the city’s capture.
Earlier, the opposition alliance claimed to have captured the northern province of Takhar, including the capital Taloqan, provincial capital of northwestern Badghis province, Qala-e-Nau, and the strategic town of Pul-e-Khumri.
The opposition forces said they captured the strategic town of Qala-e-Nau in western Afghanistan yesterday after an intense four-hour battle. Commander Ismail Khan told Reuters that 15 Taleban fighters were killed and about 300 arrested in several hours of fighting for Qala-e-Nau which was now under opposition control.
The anti-Taleban forces captured the central Afghan town of Bamiyan yesterday after the provincial governor surrendered to the opposition, Iranian state radio said. “Bamiyan governor Mowlawi Islam and 300 of his troops surrendered and joined the (opposition) forces,” an Iranian radio correspondent reported from Afghanistan.
The correspondent said opposition forces also captured the towns of Kahmard and Sayghan in Bamiyan province without facing any resistance from the Taleban.
An Afghan opposition leader said yesterday the Northern Alliance routed 1,200 Pakistani and Arab fighters in the forces of the ruling Afghan Taleban after they rejected an offer to surrender and made a stand near Mazar-e-Sharif.
Commander Haji Muhammad Mohaqiq told Reuters by satellite phone that the 1,200 foreign fighters joined battle on Saturday night when they made a stand four kilometers from the city despite being offered the chance to surrender.
Thirty Taleban troops were killed in northeastern Afghanistan near the border with Tajikistan, an opposition commander told AFP yesterday. Ten big explosions rocked Kabul yesterday as US warplanes resumed pre-dawn attacks on Taleban targets around the Afghan capital, residents said. All the bombs were thought to have fallen within the city limits.
Abdul Henan Hemat, head of the Taleban’s Bakhter information agency, said a marble factory in the east of the city was hit and “completely destroyed.”
US planes have heavily pounded Taleban front-lines north of the capital where opposition fighters are also massing with some commanders saying there will be an offensive to get closer to Kabul.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, anti-Taleban warlords discussed military strategy and power-sharing arrangements. The talks will provide the first indication of whether the disparate ethnic factions that make up the Northern Alliance can agree on a blueprint for common governance. The meeting was led by ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam, Tajik commander Atta Muhammad and Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq who heads the faction representing the Shiite Hazara community.
