Taliban forces battled advancing opposition fighters outside the key city of Mazar-e-Sharif yesterday, fighting to keep control of the northern base. Meanwhile, US jets kept up heavy, round-the-clock pummeling of military sites at Afghanistan's capital.
The Taliban's supreme commander, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was reportedly trying to motivate his northern troops, telling them by two-way radio: "God Almighty will defeat the great infidel confronting us."
"Show patience and confidence, because we are waging a holy war against infidels," Omar said yesterday, according to the Afghan Islamic Press, a Pakistan-based private agency. "Life and death are both the same to us, because we want to become martyrs."
The contest for Mazar-e-Sharif was playing out 30km outside the northern city. Abdul Hanan Himat, a Taliban information ministry official, said Taliban forces were "fully capable" of holding off alliance forces.
The opposition fighters had moved as close as 7km from Mazar-e-Sharif's airport, said Ashraf Nadim, a spokesman with opposition forces.
Control of Mazar-e-Sharif would enable the alliance to control major supply routes and consolidate their position near the borders with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, from where the opposition is receiving weapons.
In Washington, the Pentagon said the Taliban could lose Mazar-e-Sharif within days -- thanks in part to US and British bombing clearing the way for the opposition.
The stronghold's fall would be a "significant setback," said the official, Lieutenant-General Gregory Newbold, US Joint Chiefs of Staff operations director.
Himat, the Taliban Information Ministry official, claimed in Kabul that a key commander had returned to the Taliban after briefly defecting. The commander, Qazi Abdul Hai, has rejoined Taliban forces at Mazar-e-Sharif with his 4,000 men, Himat said.
Opposition forces are trying to move forward under cover of the US-led bombing campaign, launched on Oct. 7 after Taliban rulers repeatedly refused to hand over Osama bin Laden -- the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the US.
The air offensive has unleashed more than 2,000 bombs and missiles in Afghanistan, Newbold said. He called the bombardments of recent days especially intense.
Wednesday's airstrikes opened with new raids reported at the Taliban's headquarters city of Kandahar and with US jets streaking over Kabul -- followed rapidly by five explosions on the northern outskirts. Five more explosions came at midday -- three south of Kabul and two to the north.
Taliban military bases, fuel and transport depots, and the civilian and military airport are all on the city's northern edge.
Another three bombs fell in the southwest of the capital, blowing windows and doors out of many homes and small shops in the area.
Typically, Taliban anti-aircraft gunners respond to the bombing raids with heavy fire, although the US and British jets fly high out of range. They were silent yesterday.
The Pentagon confirmed that some of the bombs in Tuesday's barrage north of the capital had struck warehouses of the International Red Cross.
A Pentagon statement said US pilots, dropping 450kg bombs, had targeted depots suspected to be used by the Taliban military.
"US forces did not know that ICRC was using one or more of the warehouses," the statement said.
Red Cross officials said roofs of the warehouses had been clearly marked with the aid group's insignia. One security guard was slightly injured in the bombing, which damaged stores of tents, blankets and grain.
Aid officials in Islamabad reported looting at relief operations in Afghanistan, including cars and computers stolen from offices in Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif.
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