JABAL SARAJ, Afghanistan - Opposition forces claimed to have broken the back of the Taliban military Sunday after a weekend of fierce fighting that left the Islamic regime bracing for an attack on the capital city of Kabul.
The anti-Taliban United Front, also known as the Northern Alliance, said it had taken control of the northern half of Afghanistan, although fighting continued in some areas. The extent of United Front gains could not be independently verified, but officials in the United States and Pakistan hailed the military progress as a pivotal development in the war against terrorism.
"It has turned the corner," Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the anti-terror coalition, told NBC. "Successes are visible."
But U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cautioned against a premature celebration, saying, "This is a tough, long, grinding, dirty business."
In Afghanistan, United Front leaders considered whether to advance on Kabul despite pressure from the United States to hold off. Refugees fleeing the capital described a city on edge.
Mohammed Hassan Saad, the United Front's top official in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, said his forces had captured four Afghan provinces - Tahar in the north, Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, as well as Badgis and Ghowar in the west - and linked up with other forces that have been besieging Kabul for more than a month.
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The United Front also claimed control over the city of Taloqan, near the border of Tajikistan, as well as the strategically important Salang Highway, which runs south toward Kabul until it is cut by a partly destroyed tunnel.
Abdullah Abdullah, the United Front's foreign minister, called the weekend developments "a disaster" for the Taliban.
Military leaders reached by telephone said the capture of Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, forced the Taliban forces to flee west to their last remaining northern base in Konduz.
Residents in Mazar-e-Sharif, which United Front forces captured late Friday, began to enjoy life without the Taliban's strict Islamic rule.
Men shaved beards that they had been forced to grow under the Taliban regime, music blared again from homes and shops and women jettisoned their burkhas, the head-to-toe coverings the Taliban had required them to wear.
One resident reported that men waited for hours Sunday outside of barbershops to get their beards shaved.
"The ones who lined up in the morning did not get served until the afternoon. It was a six-to-eight hour wait," said one resident, who asked not to be identified.
Many women reportedly threw flowers and baked sweets for the triumphant United Front soldiers.
"It's very pleasant now in Mazar-e-Sharif," said Shafiullah Qaisory, a senior aide for Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the three commanders who captured the city. "This afternoon we opened the shops and all the public places."
Qaisory promised that all the Taliban's repressive rules would be rolled back, and that women would be allowed to work and study in schools.
"They will have more rights than they ever did under the Taliban," said Qaisory.
Public saunas opened two days ago for the first time since 1998, when the Taliban took control of Mazar-e-Sharif and ordered saunas closed on religious grounds.
In satellite phone interviews on Sunday, all three commanders or their senior aides said they had set aside their ethnic differences and were working together to bring Mazar-e-Sharif back to normal.
In doing so, they appeared to be portraying themselves as a model multi-ethnic administration that could be emulated in other Afghan cities, an image designed to build up their credibility as potential future rulers of the nation.
Mohammad Hasham Saad, the top United Front official in Tashkent, said Taliban forces were nearly eliminated from northern Afghanistan.
"There are just a few Taliban posts left in Takhar and they are in the high mountains. In one or two days, we hope to capture Konduz, and then the north will be under our control."
Saad added that 20 United Front soldiers were killed during the offensive, but many more Taliban died.
Although the official Taliban news agency Bakhtar denied the claims that Taloqan had fallen, Taliban troops appeared to be in full retreat in northern Afghanistan.
"There wasn't any tactical withdrawal," said Abdullah, the foreign minister, adding that the Taliban abandoned heavy equipment and artillery in their haste. "There has been substantial loss for the main Taliban force."
Some of the gains were accomplished by the defection of Taliban commanders, whose troops switched allegiance to the United Front. But the Taliban also continued to pick up recruits from neighboring Pakistan.
Khaled, a Kabul shopkeeper who fled the city to escape the bombing, said he saw more than five busloads of new recruits from Pakistan. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.
"They think they're going into a holy war against the United States, so they came to our city," he said.
In Kabul, armed Taliban set up security checkpoints to search vehicles and passengers for weapons and satellite telephones, according to residents who fled the city for opposition territory.
The refugees also said the Taliban forced them to stop using a route that skirted the battle front and take a new route along Taliban positions, essentially using the refugees as human shields against further bombing of the front lines.
"They think if the United States knows about the refugees, it will make this way safer," Khaled said.
Still, it was far from clear whether the United Front was ready take on Kabul - with or without U.S. help. U.S. officials wanted to postpone any attempted takeover in the capital until opposition forces negotiate a power-sharing agreement for post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Fierce fighting continued in some areas nominally under the United Front control.
In Konduz, the Taliban hoped for help from the city's Pashtun residents. The Taliban are predominately Pashtun, the largest of Afghanistan's four main ethnic groups. The Northern Alliance is composed largely of ethnic Uzbek, Tajik and Hazari fighters.
Intense combat was also reported in Herat, an ancient center of learning and culture near the Iranian border.
Knight Ridder- Tribune
