Coverage of frontline action between Alliance and Taliban

(12 Oct 2001) STORY
Anti-Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have seized strategic points in the country's west-central region to block Taliban supply routes, according to an official at the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan.

But Mohajeddin Mehdi, first secretary of the embassy, which is affiliated to the government-in-exile of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, said fierce fighting is continuing for the the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, seen as a key stronghold for any force to take to control the country.

The opposition fighters, a loose alliance of several small groups, are also deeply worried about increasing Taliban numbers in the cities of Kunduz and Talogan, south of Tajikistan, Mehdi said.

Mehdi's claims, which couldn't be independently confirmed, indicate mixed prospects for the anti-Taliban forces, which are outnumbered and outgunned by the Taliban, even as five days of U-S-led air strikes have reportedly inflicted substantial damage on the militia that controls most of Afghanistan.

The opposition fighters, known variously as "the northern alliance" and "the united forces," have an estimated 15-thousand fighters, waging battles at several points.

There is no sweeping single front line.

The Taliban are estimated to have upwards of 40-thousand fighters and Mehdi said the opposition is trying to counteract the Taliban's numerical superiority by blocking supply routes.

The opposition forces already block the main road leading from Kabul, the capital, to the north, Mehdi said.

The only other road useful for military supplies sweeps south and west from Kabul towards Kandahar before turning and sweeping clockwise towards the north in a roundabout 2-thousand-kilometre (1,250 mile) route, Mehdi said.

Commander Said of the Kunduz brigade, the first line of the Northern Alliance defence, said his troops didn't need support from the United States.

He also said the Northern Alliance was planning to increase its attacks on the Taliban and al-Qaida positions "very soon".

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