M A I N   N E W S

Alliance closes in on Mazar-e-Sharif

Islamabad/Jabal-US-Saraj, Afghanistan, November 8
Afghan opposition commanders said they would launch an offensive today to capture the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif from the ruling Taliban, whose positions have been pounded by withering US air raids.

U.S. planes roared over the capital, Kabul, through the night en route to drop their bombs on Taliban frontline positions just north of the city.

CNN reported that the Taliban’s stronghold in the southern city of Kandahar was the target of a fierce all-night bombardment that focused on what were believed to be Taliban positions to the west of the city famed for its grapes and pomegranates.

The opposition Northern Alliance said they planned to capitalise on advances in northern Balkh province, which borders the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, and launch an offensive on the provincial capital, Mazar-e-Sharif.

The decision to launch a late-afternoon offensive followed a conference of ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, mujahideen veteran Ustad Attah and other commanders last night, Nadeem said.

The capture of the city would be a major prize for the Northern Alliance because Mazar-e-Sharif straddles crucial supply routes to Kabul in the south and also commands the most important airfield in the north of the country.

However, the Taliban fundamentalist militia was sending hundreds of fighters to reinforce the north of the country to prevent more progress by the opposition, which says it has taken three more districts south of Mazar-e-Sharif this week.

Taliban has announced the arrests of 15 persons in the eastern part of the country for allegedly spying for the USA, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported today.

PESHAWAR: A local chief from Afghanistan’s Taliban militia said he was preparing to defect, with 18 commanders and 1,600 men, to the US-backed opposition Northern Alliance.

Harkat chief in Afghanistan to fight USA
85 Pak ultras killed in bombing

Islamabad
Fazlur Rehman Khalil, the leader of the Pakistan-based militant outfit Harkat-ul Mujahideen, has crossed over to Afghanistan to join Taliban's fight against the USA, amid reports that 85 militants of another Pakistani jehadi outfit were killed in the ongoing US bombing.

Khalil was reported to have crossed over to Afghanistan early this week from Mian Mandi, a commercial town of Pakistan's north-western Mohammad Agency near the Afghan border, Pakistan daily The Nation said on Thursday.

He was reportedly accompanied by a number of guards and colleagues, it said.

Meanwhile, Kamal Azfar, a spokesman of the Harkat Jihad-i Islami, said 85 members of the group who fought along with the Taliban on the front lines against the Northern Alliance in the key Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif, were killed in the US air strikes. A number of others were reported to have been wounded. A large number of Pakistanis along with Arab associates of Osama Bin Laden held the front lines of the Taliban in the north.

Harkat Jihad i-Islami, like Harkat-ul Mujahideen was part of the United Jihad Council (UJC), headed by the Kashmir militant group Hizbul Mujahideen. UJC is a conglomerate of 14 jehad groups.

Khalil was in news recently after 22 members of his outfit were killed in Kabul when US missiles hit the house where they held a meeting. Subsequently the group had a tough time getting bodies into Pakistan as Islamabad declined permission to let the bodies to be transported though the main border check points.

Those killed included some middle- rung leaders of the organisation. Khalil was also reported to have been briefly detained here in the recent weeks after his organisation was banned by the USA for its alleged links with Osama Bin Laden. The Pakistan government has also recommended the freezing of the bank accounts of the outfit following a US ban. PTI

Pak directs Kabul to close consulate

Islamabad, November 8
Pakistan has directed Afghanistan’s Taliban regime to close its consulate in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, a Foreign Office spokesperson said today.

“The Karachi consulate staff have been asked to leave Pakistan as soon as possible,” Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said.

“Only the caretaker staff will function to look after the buildings etc,” he added.

Mr Khan, however, said the Afghan consulates at Quetta and Peshawar would operate along with the embassy in Islamabad.

About the government’s direction to Afghan Ambassador Adbul Salam Zaeef to abandon his daily press briefing, the spokesperson said the third country rule was applicable on the envoy and the diplomats should realise their responsibility.

As to why Afghanistan and the USA were not being treated alike when the American consulate in Peshawar was issuing all sorts of anti-Taliban material, Mr Khan said the rule was applicable to all.

He said, “I would look into the matter if the USA is trying to malign Afghanistan”. UNI