TEHRAN - The war in Afghanistan appeared to have swung sharply in favour of the United States-led coalition yesterday with the Northern Alliance claiming two key cities last night.
The opposition forces captured the western city of Herat last night after forces of the ruling Taleban retreated, Iranian state radio reported.
"The Northern Alliance forces captured this city after killing and taking prisoner a large number of Taleban forces," its correspondent in Herat reported. The alliance forces were under the command of Ismail Khan, the "Lion of Herat."
And the alliance also said it had taken Kunduz, the last Taleban holdout in the north, after a six-hour battle. That would open the way for supplies of Russian weapons stockpiled in Tajikistan.
Afghan opposition commanders moved troops and tanks towards the front line north of Kabul last night, saying they expected an advance on the capital today.
Two hundred reinforcements and 10 tanks advanced to join thousands of Northern Alliance fighters already believed to be facing Taleban militia north of Kabul.
Overhead, United States F-18 jets pounded the Taleban fighters with bombs, then B-52s bombed the Ghlay Nasro frontline trench positions.
The Northern Alliance said the cream of the Taleban Army, softened by five weeks of US air raids, had been wiped out in a string of surprise defeats.
The Taleban controlled about 90 per cent of Afghanistan before the offensive. The opposition says the Taleban have lost about 40 per cent of the country since the fighting began.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Northern Alliance had "effective control" of the key crossroads city of Mazar-i-Sharif, but was still meeting pockets of resistance. British officials confirmed that British troops were assisting the alliance's advances.
In Mazar-i-Sharif yesterday, Afghans lined up at barber shops to shave their beards; forbidden music blared from shops and some women removed the head-to-toe burqa as the city emerged from under Taleban rule the Afghan Islamic Press reported.
Heading the offensive in Mazar-i-Sharif was General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, whose forces have a reputation for heavy-handed treatment of civilians.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Dostum had been told "their practices have to change this time around".
The opposition has said an offensive would stop outside Kabul, where it is hated for power struggles in the 1990s that killed 50,000 residents.
Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said he had been surprised by the gains made by his forces in the past 48 hours.
"God willing, we are determined to move toward Herat," alliance spokesman Nassir Ahmad Alavi said.
nte Anti-Taleban troops were trying to move toward the capital of Baghlan province. A victory there and in Kunduz would ensure the opposition's dominance in northern Afghanistan, even if pockets of Taleban remain.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the US-led coalition - not the Northern Alliance - was setting the terms of the conflict. "The Northern Alliance have a part to play in our military strategy, but it is a strategy which we are dictating the pace of, which we are controlling," he said. "There is an absolute recognition that the Northern Alliance would be unable to form a government on its own."
Afghanistan's neighbours expressed support at the United Nations for forming a broad-based and freely chosen government.
A declaration approved by officials of the six countries bordering on Afghanistan, plus Russia and the US, backed efforts by the Afghans "to rid themselves of the Taleban regime" and find a political solution "on an urgent basis."
But Iran urged a bombing halt for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
In New York, US President George W. Bush marked Veterans Day yesterday vowing the US would exact "a serious price" for September 11.
He paid homage at Ground Zero to those who "still lie in a tomb of rubble."
American officials dismissed claims by bin Laden in a weekend interview with a Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, that he had nuclear and chemical weapons.
"I think it's unlikely he has a nuclear weapon," Rumsfeld said. "It is certainly reasonable to assume he might very well have chemical or biological and possibly even radiation weapons."
- REUTERS
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