He said Radio Mazar-i-Sharif had begun broadcasting and that one of the first messages to the people was from Rabbani, the former Afghan president who was ousted by the Taliban in 1996.
In Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah, said the Taliban had left 20 tanks and many heavy weapons behind. At least 20 Taliban fighters were killed and hundreds were taken prisoner, he said.
Meanwhile, American B-52 bombers and other warplanes attacked the front line north of Kabul yesterday, and enormous clouds of smoke billowed skyward from Taliban positions.
Anti-Taliban troops at the front were cheered by the news of the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, which changed hands several times in the late 1990s and was the site of massacres. Villagers crowded around transistor radios to hear the latest news.
"This is the beginning of the collapse of the Taliban," said Nur Agha, a 22-year-old fighter.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said it would be best if the opposition did not move immediately toward Kabul, since the city's population is likely to be hostile to it.
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