Civilians Fill Hospitals Amid Heavy Afghan Fighting

Civilian casualties filled hospitals here following heavy fighting Saturday between Taliban rebels and soldiers loyal to the deposed Afghan government.

In one hospital, a 10-month-old baby screamed, his right leg amputated by a shell. An 11-year-old boy, one arm missing, lay stunned under heavy sedation. The wounded arrived in waves of up to 30, many of them civilians.

Troops loyal to the former government’s military chief, Ahmed Shah Masoud, have staged several successful raids on Taliban positions on the only road leading north out of Kabul, the capital. The Taliban, an army of former Islamic students, captured Kabul two weeks ago.

The Talibs, who have seized two-thirds of Afghanistan and imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, claimed to have fended off the latest attack.

Taliban soldiers blocked traffic heading north, but witnesses reported hearing heavy machine-gun fire and sporadic tank fire.

Dozens of Taliban fighters were injured in battles 10 miles north of the capital. Exact numbers of casualties could not be determined because many people bury their dead immediately in accordance with Islamic tradition.

When Masoud fled the capital last month, he took his loyal troops and a large amount of arms and ammunition about 90 miles north to the Panjsher valley.

Under the cover of darkness, the ex-government troops, armed with rifles, machine guns and small arms, have slipped out of their mountain hide-outs to attack Taliban positions.

The Taliban have dug in at the mouth of the Panjsher, but attempts to push Masoud’s forces out of the valley--and eventually out of the country--have failed. The Taliban have made little headway recently.

Meanwhile, farther north, the Taliban’s opponents were hammering out details of a military alliance. Deposed Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani and leaders of other groups have assembled in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Talibs said they are not worried.

“We don’t know whether or not an alliance has been forged, and in any case, we don’t care very much because we have God on our side,” Taliban Information Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said.

The apparent head of the new alliance is Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek who controls seven provinces and commands a well-disciplined and well-armed force. His troops are dug in along the Salang Highway, the only road link connecting Kabul to northern Afghanistan and Central Asia.