Monday November 12 9:12 PM ET

Taliban Military Said to Flee Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - Taliban military forces appeared to have deserted the capital of Kabul at dawn Tuesday, after a series of stunning military victories by opposition forces over the past four days, witnesses said.

Sporadic small arms fire from hills overlooking the city could be heard but the streets were empty of the Taliban soldiers, who had been there hours earlier.

From the rooftop of the Intercontinental Hotel on a hill overlooking the city columns of Taliban vehicles could be seen heading south beginning at Monday night.

Northern alliance forces began moving into the city in pickup trucks loaded with soldiers armed with rifles and rocket launchers but there was no firing.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001

Answers

BBC - Tuesday, 13 November, 2001, 02:18 GMT Opposition forces enter Kabul outskirts

Anti-Taleban forces in northern Afghanistan have reached the outskirts of the capital Kabul, as they continue their push towards the city.

But the commander co-ordinating the Northern Alliance attack told the BBC that his troops would halt their advance on the edge of the city.

The expected advance follows sweeping gains by the Northern Alliance across the north of the country on Monday, with troops coming within six kilometres (four miles) of Kabul.

They have also taken control of the key western city of Herat and are pursuing retreating Taleban forces in the north-eastern Kunduz province.

Backed by US bombing, Northern Alliance troops broke through two lines of Taleban trenches north of Kabul on Monday, leaving only the final defences on the city's outskirts.

They have been spending the night regrouping in the town of Karabagh, 15 km north of the capital.

Click here for map of the battlegrounds

In other developments:

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says the UN must "move quickly" to help set up a representative government in Afghanistan Three Western journalists are killed during a Taleban attack on an opposition convoy Uzbekistan agrees to allow emergency relief supplies to cross its border into Afghanistan The Taleban Supreme Court indefinitely postpones the trial of eight international aid workers - two Americans, two Australians and four Germans UN officials say one of its food warehouses in Mazar-e-Sharif has been looted, though it is unclear who by The UK Government confirms publicly for the first time that British ground troops are operating inside Afghanistan

Kabul was reported to be calm, despite the Northern Alliance's approach.

A BBC correspondent in the city says people appear to be going about their daily lives, hoping for the best.

The opposition said it had information that while Taleban ministers and officials were withdrawing to their stronghold of Kandahar, pro-Taleban groups in the city were preparing for street-to-street fighting.

But the Taleban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said reports of a retreat were "a lie and baseless".

He told the Afghan Islamic Press that Taleban forces had set up another, reinforced, front line and that the opposition advance had been halted.

Other fronts

The Northern Alliance say that over 6,000 of their troops made their advance in 10 hours of fighting and had encountered fierce resistance on the eastern side of the front.

Taleban forces were retreating to Kunduz province from other parts of northern Afghanistan.

But some reports said the town of Kunduz had already fallen to the Northern Alliance.

In Herat, two opposition factions - the Shi'ite Hezb-e-Wahdat militia and troops under former city governor Ismail Khan - have established control.

Herat commands vital highways leading to Iran and Turkmenistan.

It could also be the gateway for an advance on Kandahar.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001

Agence France Presse

Tuesday November 13, 10:41 AM

Opposition troops enter Afghan capital

Opposition troops have entered Kabul according to an AFP reporter in the capital.

Fifty to 60 troops of the Northern Alliance, with their distinctive pakool caps, were seen entering the city from the north in jeeps and four-by-four vehicles.

They were armed with kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. One group was seen escorting four Taliban fighters.

Earlier opposition spokesman Waisudin Salik said the opposition had captured the districts of Qara Bagh, Nejrab and Tagab districts during Monday's advance from the front lines 50 kilometres north of the city.

The furthest point of advance was along the Old Road leading north from Kabul. The anti-Taliban forces had gained only four kilometres on the parallel New Road linking Kabul to the town of Bagram.

The attack on Kabul follows the Taliban's dramatic withdrawal from the far north and west in the past four days, as opposition infantry took advantage of weeks of relentless US air strikes.

Washington has called on the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance to surround Kabul and strangle the Taliban's forces there rather than bring the war to the streets of the city.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the opposition should isolate the capital and make way for a representative government.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001

Telegraph

Game is up for Allah's New Model Army (Filed: 13/11/2001)

Alan Philps sees the Northern Alliance advance into Taliban trenches north of Kabul

THE occupants of the Taliban trench did not have time to eat their lunch. The pan of rice and meat was barely cold, the blackened kettle still on the charcoal. There were supplies of rice, salt and tea.

There was only one thing missing: the trench's defenders, who had melted away without a fight when the first tanks of the Northern Alliance hove into view.

There was no problem with the trench, which was soundly built and recently deepened. There was no problem with the food, which was superior to the bread and raw onions handed out to the Northern Alliance, and there was plenty of ammunition.

What the Taliban lacked was morale. For the first time in its existence, the force which considered itself to be Allah's New Model Army was on the run. Having lost control of northern Afghanistan, the soldiers had no stomach for a fight at the gates of Kabul.

For three years the front line between the Taliban and the alliance had run north of the village of Karabagh. The alliance forces were so scared of the Taliban that bridges to the north had been mined, in case the black-turbaned warriors rose from their trenches and invaded.

In the event, it was the rather feeble Northern Alliance, bolstered by the air power of the United States, that triumphed yesterday.

The stunning reversal owes much to the power of the B52 bombers, which rained bombs by the dozen engulfing the Taliban positions in clouds of fire.

The alliance went out of its way to fire as few shots as possible, hoping that enemy commanders would admit they were losing and switch sides.

At dawn alliance commanders peered through the mist looking for one of their enemies, Nourallah, who had promised to change sides with all his men, and provide a bloodless start to the great day of re-conquest.

They waited in vain. Word came through that Nourallah had died in an overnight bombing raid. There was nothing to do but fight.

Three elderly tanks, preceded in Dad's Army fashion by two armed men on bicycles, wound their way to the front through the mud-walled village of Rabat.

The real action was happening on the alliance's right flank, on the western edge of the Shomali plain, where the orchards and vineyards give way to mountains. The commander of Royesh village was persuaded to surrender.

The troops were massed, in their lumbering Soviet army lorries, for an assault on the next target, the village of Estargetch, home to 700 Taliban militiamen.

"We were all ready to go and fight. We were really impatient," said Amin Urrahman, an alliance fighter. "But the local commander got on the radio and said he was ready to surrender."

As a patrol went to investigate, battle-ready troops saw a cloud of dust on the road south from the village. The Taliban were fleeing.

A great shout of joy. Under the rules of Afghan war, the local fighters switch sides and the outsiders - Pathans from the south, Arabs and Pakistanis - get into their Toyota Hilux pick-ups and flee.

To show their change of allegiance, the remaining fighters fired a few machinegun rounds at their erstwhile allies.

Two prisoners of war gave a clear hint of the desperate state of the Taliban. They were press-ganged by the Taliban who came to their village in Bamian province and demanded one fighter from each family, to replace those killed in American air raids.

"We did not want to fight. We were dragged here by force. We are not even being paid," said Mohammed Taqi. "The Taliban have no fighting spirit left. They are waiting only to see their fate. It is only the Arabs who fight."

There was no shortage of morale on the alliance side. Most of the fighters were hoping to return to their homes, occupied by the Taliban for three years.

The breakthrough was surprisingly easy. Alliance commanders dispatched five tanks to test the Taliban defences. There was little response.

At 2pm the front commander, Amanullah Gozar, broadcast the order: "We have waited long enough. It is time to advance."

One of his lieutenants, Commander Babrak, said: "There was very little opposition. Some machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, but nothing very effective. The Taliban forward positions just ran away."

The tanks, followed by infantry, pressed on to the centre of Karabagh, taking a detour to burn the house of the fleeing Taliban commander.

The only question left last night was where the remaining Taliban would choose to make their stand.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001