Afghanistan Militia Attacks Troops in Northern Valley

Taliban fighters struggled up rugged mountains while tanks and artillery pounded a northern valley Saturday to flush out government soldiers driven from the Afghan capital a week ago.

After a blistering, daylong assault on the Panjsher valley, the Taliban claimed to have captured three mountain peaks and some heavy artillery.

Tanks and rocket launchers bombarded the area, and four helicopter gunships swooped low into the valley, 90 miles north of Kabul, blasting government positions and dodging antiaircraft fire in an attempt to rout soldiers led by former government military chief Ahmed Shah Masoud.

The Taliban--a movement that emerged in late 1994 from Islamic religious schools--forced Masoud and the president out of Kabul and now control the bulk of Afghanistan’s territory.

The militants, who impose their strict interpretation of Islam where they rule, vowed to push Masoud’s forces out of Afghanistan or kill them.

From his bases in the Panjsher valley, Masoud had fought invading Soviet troops as well as Afghanistan’s Communist soldiers before Muslim rebels threw them out in 1992.

The only other significant area of the country not under Taliban control is several provinces farther north, where Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum rules.

In Kabul, a Taliban spokesman said the Islamic militia does not want to fight Dostum. “We are negotiating with Dostum and have no problems with him,” he said.

Dostum, a former Communist, has said he is ready to negotiate, but he warned the Taliban against trying to rule his territory.

The Taliban spokesman also warned Russia and the Central Asian states not to interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

Russia and Tajikistan agreed Saturday to step up the defense of the Tajik-Afghan border in response to the Taliban victory.

Russia wants to prevent the Taliban from joining up with Tajik rebels who are fighting the Moscow-backed Tajik government from Afghanistan.