The Taliban acknowledged yesterday that it lost the city of Mazar-i-Sharif to the opposition in northern Afghanistan. Aided by US bombing, opposition troops said they were pursuing Taliban fighters as they retreated.
Anti-Taliban officials said that hundreds of Arab and Pakistani volunteers fighting with the Islamic militia had holed up in a school 10km west of the city.
"Our soldiers are trying to take them alive," said Saeed Zaher Wasik, a spokesman for the Shiite Muslim faction of the opposition Northern Alliance. The report could not be independently confirmed.
"Yes, Mazar has gone," Taliban Defense Minister Obaidullah Akhund said.
"The city and its airport are with the opposition. Our forces are in Tangi Tashgurghan," he said, referring to a town about 60km to the east of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Taliban's Bakhtar News Agency said sustained bombing by US warplanes had forced fighters to pull out of the strategic city Friday with their weapons and equipment.
"For seven days continuously, they have been bombing Taliban positions. They used very large bombs," Bakhtar chief Abdul Henan Hemat said.
"For the protection of our forces, our war machine and equipment and prevention of civilian casualties, the leadership ... and the Defense Ministry deemed it necessary to pull out," he said, adding that the retreat had been very orderly and without casualties.
The capture of Mazar-i-Sharif was the biggest success since US President George W. Bush launched airstrikes Oct. 7 to force the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US.
Forces of ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum entered the city late on Friday and by first light were patrolling the streets, officials said.
"This morning the city is quiet," said Karim Khalili, another spokesman for the Shiite Muslim opposition. "There is no fighting. All the Taliban are gone."
The fall of the city opens up a land bridge to neighboring Uzbekistan that will allow a flood of weapons and supplies to be ferried to the opposition alliance. It would also give US-led forces their first major staging ground in Afghanistan for the campaign against the Taliban.
Opposition commanders said they now had their eyes focused on the strategic town of Pul-i-Khumri that commands the main road south to Kabul, and the northern province of Kunduz, whose fall would open the way to Tajikistan where stockpiles of Russian weapons are waiting for transport to Afghanistan.
Capitalizing on their victory, anti-Taliban troops also took control of Hairatan on the Afghan border with Uzbekistan, said Mohammed Abil, a spokesman for Burhanuddin Rabbani, the titular head of the opposition.
Dostum 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 as well as some 10 tanks.
Northern Alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem later said some 250 Taliban fighters had been killed and 500 taken prisoner.
The residents of Mazar-i-Sharif warmly greeted triumphant alliance fighters when they entered the city, said Mohammed Hasham Saad, the top opposition official in Uzbekistan. Most people in the city, along with the majority of northern alliance soldiers, are ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks.
"They helped our forces move inside of the city and gave them food and information," Saad said. Some civilians pointed out Taliban positions to alliance fighters, he said.
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