Onward to Kabul. With so many world leaders (and particularly those Islamic countries) preference to do nothing but lip service, this push by opposition warlords is probably the much better option. This may result in quicker conclusion to the operation, and the reconstruction/rebuilding process can start sooner.
myafghan.com
Afghan opposition plans Kabul push
By Mark Chisholm and Rosalind Russell
BAGRAM/JABAL-US-SARAJ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance is preparing for a planned push toward Kabul after proclaiming the capture of the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif would be the biggest breakthrough by Northern Alliance fighters battling the fundamentalist Taliban militia since U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan began on October 7 to flush out Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, and would open up a key supply corridor from Uzbekistan.
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said on that in an interview inside Afghanistan, bin Laden had said he had nuclear and chemical weapons and might use them to respond to U.S. attacks.
"I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent," the newspaper quoted bin Laden as telling a well-known Pakistani journalist in Afghanistan on Wednesday night.
Asked where he got the weapons, bin Laden replied: "Go to the next question," the newspaper said.
Dawn said Hamid Mir, editor of Pakistan's Ausaf newspaper, had interviewed bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, after being taken blindfold by jeep from Kabul on November 7.
The report was not possible to confirm, but the newspaper published a photograph of bin Laden and the reporter.
It was printed just hours after Northern Alliance forces led by ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum routed Taliban fighters and captured Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday evening, opposition leaders said, after an assault backed by intense U.S. bombing.
The Taliban confirmed that opposition troops had entered the southern outskirts of the city, but the Afghan Islamic Press quoted Taliban sources as saying their fighters were regrouping.
A Taliban official told Qatar-based satellite channel al-Jazeera on Saturday that it was not clear whether the Northern Alliance had penetrated Mazar-i-Sharif's defences, but insisted that even if they had they would be repulsed.
"These are statements from the opposition...but there is no third party to confirm that. The picture is not clear to us," Aziz al-Rahman Abdel-Ahad of the Taliban Foreign Ministry told al-Jazeera in the Qatari capital Doha.
Asked about the impact on the Taliban if they lost the city, he said: "Without doubt, it is a natural and realistic fact that it will have a major effect on the (Taliban) mujahideen, but we are sure that even if they (Northern Alliance) enter they will be expelled."
In Washington, the Pentagon said it could not confirm that Alliance forces had taken Mazar-i-Sharif, which lies about 35 km (20 miles) south of the border with Uzbekistan, but said the situation was encouraging.
ADVANCE ON KABUL PLANNED
On another front, just north of the Afghan capital Kabul, hundreds of Northern Alliance troops, backed by tanks, massed after darkness fell on Friday and commanders said they would advance soon.
A Reuters cameraman saw about 800 Northern Alliance fighters marching toward the front line along with artillery and four tanks while U.S. jets roared overhead, bombing Taliban positions overlooking the opposition-held Bagram airport north of Kabul.
Commanders at the front said on Friday they expected to launch an overnight offensive to take the Taliban positions that have made the airport unusable.
But a senior opposition source at the front said later that the advance had been postponed.
"Tonight, the U.S. air support is needed elsewhere so the offensive will not happen now," said the source, who declined to be identified.
The Northern Alliance has said it would not march into Kabul if it gets that far, but would halt outside the city limits.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was not encouraging the Northern Alliance to try to take the capital.
"To be frank there would probably be a high level of tension in the city if the Northern Alliance were to come in force with a population in Kabul that may not at the moment be friendly to the Northern Alliance," Powell said on Fox News.
"So it might be a better course of action to let it become an open city if we get to that point and then bring in others to begin to stand up a new Afghan government or provide some sort of interim arrangement," Powell said. "But we're some time away from having to face those kinds of questions and problems."
Northern Alliance fighters in the town of Jabal-us-Saraj, to the north of Kabul, were jubilant and fired Kalashnikovs into the air when reports of the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif reached them.
MAJOR BLOW
The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif would be a major blow for the Taliban, battered by 35 days of U.S. strikes aimed at flushing out Osama bin Laden, suspected of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in which some 4,600 people were killed.
The city straddles crucial supply routes between Kabul and Uzbekistan and has the main airport in northern Afghanistan.
"We have taken Mazar-i-Sharif. The Taliban troops have fled. The only Taliban left behind are the prisoners we have taken. We have full control of the town. The airport is in our hands, too," Dostum said in a satellite phone interview with CNN Turk.
Dostum, who ruled Mazar-i-Sharif until he was forced to flee in 1997, said the battle for the city lasted just an hour and a half before the Taliban retreated, leaving eight dead Northern Alliance troops and 90 of their own men.
Northern Alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem later told Reuters some 250 Taliban fighters had been killed and 500 taken prisoner.
The Alliance said prisoners included Arab and Pakistani fighters who make up the backbone of the al Qaeda network led by Saudi-born militant bin Laden.
Northern Alliance Interior Minister Yunus Qanuni said the capture of the city was a key victory.
"Mazar-i-Sharif is an important city, it has important military significance for us," Qanuni said.
"It opens up the border to Uzbekistan and has a big airport."
- Article added at 12:59 AM (CST) on 11/10/2001. |
