Huge market reaction in the next two weeks. Unexpected positive results that blew out all experts estimates.
Time to take care of the impoverished war torn Afghans during Ramazan. Leader of mankind and nations has prevailed. This by itself will awaken all people worldwide that 21st century humanity will not and cannot be derailed. Religious clerics should now know their place in their respective societies, but they can never lead mankind to the next level of human achievement.
Sunday November 11 11:17 AM ET
Opposition Claims More Victories
dailynews.yahoo.com
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - Two days after a major victory in a key northern city, anti-Taliban forces claimed Sunday they were routing the Taliban through northern Afghanistan, capturing the former opposition headquarters of Taloqan and other major strongholds.
A Taliban official denied Taloqan had been overrun, and the claim could not be independently verified.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told ``Fox News Sunday'' that the opposition was ``putting pressure'' on Taloqan and the northwestern city of Herat.
Rumsfeld also said the opposition was facing ``pockets of resistance'' in Mazar-e-Sharif, the northern city that it captured Friday. He said the alliance had not yet completely secured the city's main airport.
And, he added, ``there could always be a counterattack.''
Clearly, however, it appeared the Taliban were in full retreat in the north, possibly to reorganize their forces around the capital, Kabul, and southern strongholds of their ethnic Pashtun base.
U.S. aircraft, including B-52 bombers, roamed the skies, blasting Taliban positions on the front line about 30 miles north of Kabul and seeking out retreating bands of Taliban fighters.
Jubilant opposition spokesmen claimed the Taliban had been routed in the north except in Kunduz province on the border with Tajikistan and in Badghis province on the border with Turkmenistan.
Opposition forces planned to move into Kunduz late Sunday, opposition spokesman Mohammed Abil said.
``Hopefully we will manage Kunduz tonight or tomorrow. They are fully encircled. They have no way, no escape,'' Abdullah, the opposition's foreign minister, said in Jabal Saraj.
Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, fell Sunday after a fierce battle outside the city with Taliban forces who included Arabs and Pakistanis, opposition spokesman Mohammed Abil said. Once that line of defense crumbled, opposition fighters swiftly occupied the city, he said.
``There was fighting all last night and all today,'' Abil said.
Taloqan is about 140 miles east of Mazar-e-Sharif, and some 155 miles north of Kabul.
Abdul Hanan Hemat, chief of the Taliban's Bakhtar news agency, denied claims that Taloqan had fallen. ``They are lying,'' he said.
An opposition spokesman, Ashraf Nadeem, said Taliban also withdrew from the key road junction town of Pul-e-Khumri in Baghlan province and that Taliban forces in the area were headed toward central Bamiyan province west of Kabul.
Later Sunday, opposition spokesman Ahmed Baram of the Shiite Muslim faction said anti-Taliban units were entering the city of Bamiyan west of Kabul and declared that Bamiyan province ``is completely with us.''
The opposition said its fortunes in Bamiyan were bolstered after a Taliban commander there switched sides after seeing the battlefield momentum swing against him.
The defection of the commander, Isamuddin, cut off the road for Taliban troops retreating from Mazar-e-Sharif to Kabul and isolated those still in the north, Abil said.
The report of the Taliban commander's defection could not be independently verified.
Elsewhere, opposition official Noor Ahmad said advancing anti-Taliban troops seized Qala-i-Nau, capital of Badghis province, and were about 25 miles east of Herat.
Despite some confusion over specific claims, the Taliban has acknowledged that its troops are withdrawing southward following weeks of round-the-clock U.S. bombing of their positions in the north.
The northern alliance is comprised mainly of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks - the dominant ethnic groups in much of the north. The Taliban derive their support from the country's dominant ethnic Pashtuns, who are mostly in the south.
In Kabul, buildings shook and windows rattled on Sunday as American warplanes bombed the outskirts of the capital. Heavy U.S. bombing overnight and into the day was intended to soften up Taliban positions.
The fortunes of the opposition northern alliance shifted dramatically following the Taliban withdrawal Friday from the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, 45 miles south of the border with Uzbekistan.
After seizing Mazar-e-Sharif, the opposition threatened to launch a major attack on Kabul within days. However, President Bush (news - web sites) said Saturday that opposition troops should steer clear of Kabul until a broad-based government including all ethnic groups could be formed.
``We will encourage our friends to head south ... but not into the city of Kabul itself,'' Bush said at a news conference in New York with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf - whose country opposes a dominant role for the northern alliance in any future Afghan government.
Bush's comments raised doubts about an imminent offensive toward Kabul. The opposition could not launch a successful attack against the city without strong U.S. air support. Nevertheless, U.S. planes Sunday were still attacking Taliban positions defending Kabul.
Gen. Alim Khan, a senior opposition commander along the front line north of Kabul, confirmed the offensive toward the capital had been delayed.
``They are going to help the United Front to liberate these provinces first,'' Khan said of the American jets. ``That's why they postponed the offensive in this area, because the jet fighters are busy in the northern provinces. We are in a state of high alert and expect the order at any time.''
Khan expressed frustration over delays in moving against Kabul.
``I'm tired of sitting around here doing nothing and my are soldiers, too. We should be going to the front line,'' he said. ``If we want to enter Kabul, we won't care about U.S. willingness or unwillingness.''
Another senior opposition officer at the Kabul front, deputy brigade commander Mir Rahman, said he thought ``no one should interfere with our country or tell us what to do. If I go to Kabul, I will not stop there.''
Elsewhere, the Bakhtar news agency said 200 civilians died in bombing Thursday night and Friday morning in Shah Aga village in southern Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold. There was no independent confirmation of the figure, and the Pentagon (news - web sites) has accused the Taliban of inflating casualty figures.
U.S. bombs also hit a tile factory on the eastern edge of Kabul on Saturday night, said Bakhtar chief Hemat. Two men were missing and believed dead, he said.
Inside Kabul, Taliban soldiers manned checkpoints, stopping cars and searching passengers. The checkpoints were new and may have been prompted by the loss of northern territory and reports that opposition soldiers north of the city were preparing an offensive.
Bush launched the airstrikes after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which killed about 4,500 people.
In an interview with a Pakistani journalist published in two installments over the weekend in Ausaf, a widely circulated Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper, bin Laden was asked if he was behind the anthrax attacks in the United States.
The terror suspect laughed and said: ``We don't know anything about anthrax.'' |
