Taliban Halts Opposition Advance on Key Northern Afghanistan City

As U.S. warplanes roamed above the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, flying low and striking at targets as they came into view, the Taliban rushed troops to a key northern city Wednesday, halting the advance of the opposition Northern Alliance, anti-Taliban officials said.

The setback for the lightly armed Northern Alliance troops in Mazar-i-Sharif--strategically important because it would provide the opposition with a key supply route and the U.S. with a vital airstrip--left them cut off from the city and facing superior Taliban forces equipped with tanks and artillery.

The ability of the ruling Taliban to quickly move in reinforcements demonstrates that despite the U.S. bombing campaign, the regime retains good communications and control of the strategically important east-west highway that links their forces in northern Afghanistan.

But as the Taliban brings its armor into the open to fight the Northern Alliance, its forces could be increasingly vulnerable to U.S. airstrikes. In a sign of the extent to which U.S. fighter jets and bombers rule the Afghan skies, American pilots are increasingly setting their sights on Taliban forces and vehicles, as well as Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, wherever they are found, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

“The fixed stuff is tapering off, so we’re going for the emerging targets and targets of opportunity,” a Pentagon official said. “And guess what? As we’re stirring up the dust, we’re finding things.”

As the bombing campaign entered its 11th day Wednesday, there were signs of disarray inside Afghanistan and indications that some Taliban officials have begun to flee the country.

Top Taliban Officials Said to Be in Pakistan

In Quetta, Pakistan, one of the Taliban’s top morals enforcers, Mullah Ghulam Haider, was reported by residents to have returned quietly to a home he owns in the city’s Killi Shabo neighborhood.

Haider served in the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which sent religious police to patrol Taliban-controlled communities and punish women who fail to cover themselves completely or men whose beards are deemed too short.

A former governor of Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, Gul Agha Sherzai, who is opposed to the Taliban, told The Times that Haider had crossed over from Kandahar on Wednesday and returned to his longtime Quetta home. Sherzai said he was also certain that Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel had been in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, but he did not know his current whereabouts.

A neighbor of Haider’s, a Pakistani government clerk who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had seen Haider arriving. The neighbor said Haider had not emerged from the house, “even to go to the mosque.”

Meanwhile, a truck carrying refugees on the road between Kandahar and the Pakistani border town of Chaman was hit by a U.S. bomb Wednesday afternoon, according to a Pakistani state television reporter based in Chaman.

PTV correspondent Abdul Samad said at least six people died, all members of one family. He said there were an unspecified number of other injuries.

The Pentagon said it was investigating the report. In three previous incidents, the Pentagon, after first saying it would investigate, has confirmed that U.S. bombs had mistakenly hit civilians and civilian facilities.

In the battle for Mazar-i-Sharif, opposition officials--who had said earlier that they hoped to capture the city as early as Wednesday--admitted that they now had no immediate prospect of taking it.

“Yesterday, we were in the position of being on the offensive,” said Mohammed Hashad Saad, the top Northern Alliance official based in neighboring Uzbekistan. “Now the Taliban has started an offensive, and we are defending. Maybe tomorrow we will be on the offensive again.”

The Afghan government in exile had said Tuesday that Northern Alliance troops had entered Mazar-i-Sharif. But on Wednesday, officials contradicted that report and said their forces had been halted about three miles south of the city center.

Residents also reported that Northern Alliance troops were on the outskirts of the city near the airport on the eastern side, according to a refugee from the city who is in contact with relatives there.

Saad, who serves as the acting ambassador to Uzbekistan for the Afghan government in exile, said the Northern Alliance forces had advanced in recent days from the south toward Mazar-i-Sharif and were arrayed in hills overlooking a plain where Taliban forces were positioned.

The Taliban troops have 10 tanks and about 90 other vehicles, including artillery, he said. The Northern Alliance troops, who made their way through the mountains, have neither.

“We believe the Taliban will not allow us easily to take Mazar-i-Sharif,” he said. “They will fight to the last blood.”

The alliance troops cannot bring their own tanks or artillery into the battle, he said, because they have no access by road through the mountains.

Saad expressed hope that U.S. aircraft would bomb the Taliban positions and destroy their tanks and other vehicles, which could alter the balance of the battle overnight.

“Tonight, if they started, that would be good,” he said.

Mazar-i-Sharif Standoff Could Be Prolonged

The stalemate at Mazar-i-Sharif could last indefinitely, Saad said. The Northern Alliance, he said, is reluctant to attack the city because of the fear of causing civilian casualties. But the alliance’s reluctance to move may have more to do with the fact that its forces are outnumbered, at least for now.

The Taliban rushed about 1,000 troops to Mazar-i-Sharif from Kunduz province, about five hours to the east. That gave the Taliban a total of 3,000 to 4,000 troops protecting the city, according to the Northern Alliance.

The Northern Alliance has been able to move about 2,000 troops to the front line, with 5,000 more still working their way north or held in reserve, Saad said.

Northern Alliance control of Mazar-i-Sharif’s airport could be an important development for the U.S. campaign, making it possible for the U.S. to land aircraft and equipment within Afghanistan.

The intense U.S. bombardment of Afghanistan continued Wednesday, with about 90 fighter jets and bombers dropping heavy munitions on military targets throughout the country.

Among the planes were 80 to 85 fighter jets based on aircraft carriers, five bombers flying from the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and fewer than five AC-130 gunships, immense planes that fly low and rake the land with a hail of cannon and heavy munitions fire, the Pentagon reported.

Bombs struck militia bases in the southern city of Kandahar and Taliban storage facilities, garrisons and a fuel dump in Kabul, the capital, said Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Our strategy is to go after elements of Taliban military power,” Stufflebeem said. “We are systematically pulling away at those legs underneath their stool that the Taliban uses to support Al Qaeda.”

The U.S. also continued to drop food and medicine from cargo planes flying at high altitudes. The humanitarian packets are intended for starving refugees.

The international aid community’s efforts to feed hungry Afghans were seriously hampered Tuesday night when Taliban soldiers seized control of U.N. food warehouses in Kandahar and Kabul, World Food Program officials said Wednesday.

About 7,000 tons of wheat that had been trucked into the country in recent days--more than half the food on hand for distribution--was under Taliban control Tuesday night.

“There is no question that the seizure of nearly 7,000 tons of our food last night is a setback for the people of Afghanistan,” WFP spokeswoman Abigail Spring said. “However, we will not cease distribution.”

Catherine Bertini, executive director of the U.N. program, told reporters in Washington that deliveries to those areas were now bypassing warehouses and going directly to hungry people. When the Taliban ordered the program’s Afghan staff to vacate the warehouses, they did as they were told, she said.

Paddock reported from Tashkent, Schrader from Washington and Daniszewski from Quetta. Times staff writer Megan Garvey in Washington also contributed to this report.