The opposition Northern Alliance has sliced Afghanistan in two, leaving only pockets of Taliban resistance in the northern part of the country while tightening its grip on the capital Kabul on Tuesday, said reports.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said that last Friday, Northern Alliance forces controlled only 15 percent of Afghanistan, and now they control about 50 percent, according to CNN Online.
Most shocking to the world has been the capture of Kabul that crowned the rebels' swift advance.
Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said his forces had no choice but to enter the capital despite opposition from other countries, including the United States, said CNN.
When the Taliban suddenly pulled out of the city Tuesday morning, disturbances by "irresponsible people" with weapons forced the alliance to march in and secure the city, the news network cited Abdullah as saying.
The alliance fighters entered Kabul unopposed to scenes of "chaos and jubilation" on Monday night after a series of sweeping advances in the north, said the BBC Online, which added that the rebels had now occupied government buildings and set up checkpoints in the city.
The alliance has also taken control of the key western city of Herat, said the news service, and is pursuing retreating Taleban forces in the northeastern Kunduz province.
The rout of the ruling regime's forces came on day 38 of the US bombing campaign in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which Bush has blamed on Taliban "guest" Osama bin Laden, said Reuters.
Despite the opposition gains - and a $5 million price on his head - there is still no sign of bin Laden, added the agency.
THE ROAD TO KANDAHAR?
Opposition leaders told Reuters that the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar could fall within 24 hours as moderate Taliban forces abandoned their hardline compatriots.
The stage was set at dawn when veteran mujahideen commander Ismail Khan, accompanied by 4,000 fighters, entered his former powerbase, the city of Herat, a spokesman told the agency.
With Herat taken, the way is open for an advance on Kandahar, but BBC correspondents say the war in southern Afghanistan could be very different, as the Northern Alliance itself may be unwilling to press on into largely Pashtun territory.
The rebel force is a patchwork of different minority ethnic groups, including Uzbeks and Tajiks, and analysts fear there are already signs that their division of Kabul into different enclaves signals a turn back toward the internecine wars of the early 1990s.
'SLAUGHTERED CHICKEN'
With an attack on his stronghold apparently imminent, and amid reports that he has actually fled the country, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar on Tuesday urged his scattered fighters to regroup and fight, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.
"I order you to completely obey your commanders and not to go hither and thither," AIP quoted Omar as saying to his troops in an address in the Pashto language over their wireless sets.
"Any person who goes hither and thither is like a slaughtered chicken which falls and dies," he warned in remarks cited by Reuters.
As the fighting raged on, Northern Alliance officials said the UN and all groups, except the Taliban, would be invited to Kabul for talks on a future government, reported the agency.
For its part, Pakistan called for a demilitarized zone in Kabul, said the BBC, in an apparent effort to head off the consolidation of power by the enemies of its former client, the Taliban.
The White House, which had opposed a rebel attack on Kabul, described the situation in the capital as "very fluid" - but a senior Pentagon official called the Taliban departure "great news," according to the UK-based news service.
Meanwhile, in a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Bush said his administration would continue to work with the Northern Alliance to make sure it recognized that a new government in Afghanistan must include representatives of all the people, reported CNN.
Putin, however, warned against becoming "deluded" by the recent rebel advances, saying the Taliban forces were still a threat, added the news service - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
