Northern Alliance seize part of Taliban-held city

The Northern Alliance today claimed opposition forces in Afghanistan have seized an outlying district of the strategic Taliban-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Agopruk district, 30 miles south-west of the city, is one of three the opposition must take if they are to claim Mazar-e-Sharif. Capture of the city would ensure the flow of arms and other supplies from neighbouring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

US jets also continued to pound Afghanistan’s other key front, north of Kabul today, elating opposition commanders, who said the bombardment was doing just what it should weaken Taliban defences of the capital.

The latest in days of powerful strikes at the front started at dark and kept up into the day, hitting Taliban tanks and what opposition forces said was a Taliban headquarters village on a hillside overlooking the embattled Panjshir Valley.

At both fronts, opposition force leaders had praise for the US air strikes after weeks of criticising more selective US bombing as weak.

‘‘We are happy. It is very effective,’’ said Bismillah Khan, an opposition commander coordinating anti-Taliban forces at two provinces in the area of the Kabul front.

In Kabul, Taliban Minister Qatradullah Jamal insisted Taliban morale remained high at the fronts, and that most of US bombs were hitting behind Taliban lines.

‘‘But even if a Taliban dies his friend his behind him running forward. He is not afraid to lose his life. He knows he will go to heaven,’’ Jamal said.

Spirits were high today on the opposition-held side of the front, with the northern opposition alliance’s elite Zarbati forces streaming toward the village of Jabal Saraj. Troops drilled ahead of a weekend parade there, with Afghan president-in-exile Burhanuddin Rabbani due to review the troops.

On a clear, beautiful day, however, snowcaps shining on the peaks surrounding the Panjshir Valley signalled a looming problem for the opposition - the coming of winter, with snows that will close supply routes for fresh troops and ammunition.

Opposition forces say they are working hard on an airstrip at the front for flying in supplies. But today despite earlier pledges it would be ready, the strip remained unfinished.

Anti-Taliban forces hope to march on Kabul in the few weeks left before Afghanistan’s harsh winter sets in.

Despite the growing confidence among opposition forces, success is far from certain if they do advance on Kabul.

The northern alliance overall is poorly trained, short of guns and ammunition, and outmanned by the fighters of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network on the other side of the front.

In recent days, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has confirmed that Americans were on the ground in Afghanistan helping direct the strikes and coordinate efforts with alliance fighters.

On Friday, a US helicopter crashed while trying to rescue a sick soldier already in Afghanistan, and that the injured crew had to be saved in turn, a senior US government official said.

Four crew members were injured, though their wounds were not life-threatening, a Pentagon statement said.

The downed helicopter was later destroyed by F-14 Tomcats flying from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, the Pentagon statement said, to prevent the helicopter from falling into Taliban or al-Qaida hands.