'Taliban fall' in Mazar-i-Sharif (original) (raw)

The Taliban are defeated in the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Northern Alliance claimed this afternoon.

A spokesman, Ashraf Nadeem, said opposition soldiers broke through a southern front line at the Pul-i-Imam Bukhri bridge, overran the civilian airport and entered the city.

If true, it would represent the Taliban's single largest defeat since the US airstrikes began on October 7.

But there is no independent confirmation. A spokesman for the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said the Pentagon would welcome a breakthrough but did not know if one had happened.

Telephone links to Mazar-i-Sharif have been cut, no journalists are present and conditions inside the city for the estimated 200,000 civilians are unclear.

The Taliban have not yet confirmed or denied the claims.

Northern Alliance troops have been fighting the Taliban for control of the city for months, which, if captured, would open up a supply route from Uzbekistan into central Afghanistan.

The two sides have consistency given conflicting accounts of the battle.

An Afghan opposition official in Uzbekistan, Mohammed Hasham Saad, said earlier today that Northern Alliance soldiers had "moved a little bit" in heavy fighting. But the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted an unidentified Taliban spokesman saying that troops defending the city had fought off two opposition attacks.

The US air campaign, which has been instrumental to the advance of the opposition troops towards the city, continued today with both sides reporting heavy attacks.

The general in charge of the American military campaign, Tommy Franks, yesterday said there was a "gunfight ... going on in the vicinity", denying charges that the US bombing had not been strong enough to persuade the Northern Alliance to attack.

"We like the progress we have made to this point. It is only those who believe that all of this should be done in two weeks' time or in one month or perhaps in two months who are disappointed by this."

But Northern Alliance field commanders are said to be so sure of victory that they had met to discuss how to storm the city without bloody house-to-house fighting. A spokesman said the alliance is counting on defections among the Taliban forces and an uprising by the city residents.

There has been no independent information on casualties in the battle, but a Kashmir separatist group linked to al-Qaida, Harkat-i-Jehad-i-Islami, yesterday said 85 of its fighters were killed in recent US airstrikes around Mazar-i-Sharif.

Elsewhere, jets and B-52 bombers today hit Taliban targets north of Kabul and around Kandahar. Abdul Hanan Hemat, the chief of the Taliban's news agency, Bakhtar, described the attack north of the capital as a "very heavy" bombardment. "Every two minutes, five minutes, another bomb was dropped," he said.

But Zia Hauddin, an opposition commander, said the Taliban had reinforced the front line with about 2,000 troops, mostly Arab and Pakistani volunteers. The US bombing "should be accelerated," he said.

Witnesses also reported 30 bombs falling near Bagram, the site of an air base controlled by the Northern Alliance. The opposition has not been able to use the airfield because of the proximity of Taliban troops.

The Taliban fired anti-aircraft guns at the US warplanes and shelled opposition forces. Fire from Taliban lines has diminished in recent days, though it is not clear whether Taliban forces are saving or running out of ammunition, or have lost guns to the bombing.

At least 22 civilians and four Taliban soldiers died in bombing across Afghanistan today, according to Bakhtar.