Taliban stronghold may have fallen to freelance warlord
The Taliban stronghold of Jalalabad was reported to have fallen today to a warlord who has refused to ally himself to either side in the war for Afghanistan.
As US jets were pounding the eastern city, the Afghan Islamic Press said Jalalabad, the capital of the Nangarhar’s region, was now under the control of Yunis Khalis, who declared himself independent of both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.
Reports said Taliban fighters were switching sides in Jalalabad.
Khalis’ followers took control of the Afghan border station at Torkham, a major crossing point into Pakistan and were preventing anyone, including Afghans, from entering the country today, according to witnesses.
American aircraft bombed the airport and military installations around the city overnight and early in the morning, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.
Citing an unidentified Taliban official, the agency also said warplanes attacked a military base in Khost, six miles from the border with Pakistan.
In Kabul, a Northern Alliance official said there were reports of uprisings against the Taliban by residents in eastern Nangarhar province as well as in the southern provinces of Ghazni and Wardak.
‘‘People have revolted against the Taliban,’’ said Saeed Hussain Anwari, a top Shiite Muslim commander who rode triumphantly into Kabul after a string of sudden victories over the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.
Many believe Osama bin Laden remains in the Jalalabad area where his al-Qaida network had a major training base and cave hideouts
The loss of Jalalabad would be a severe blow to the retreating Taliban who now control less than 20% of the country and could hasten their move to fight a guerilla war in the hills and mountains.
If the city has fallen, the Taliban would still be left in tenuous control of their major stronghold, Kandahar, where their are holding six western aid workers accused of promoting Christianity.
Anwari said Kandahar airport had been seized by forces loyal to Arif Khan, a member of a southern Pashtun tribe, but Taliban forces were in the mountains outside the city.
The centre of the city, he said, was contested but it was unclear if there was any actual fighting.
In the south and east of the country, the situation appeared chaotic. A Taliban official at the Pakistani border town of Chaman, Mullah Najibullah, said about 200 Pashtun fighters had mutinied against the Taliban in Kandahar.
Pakistani intelligence sources said many Taliban leaders had sent their families across the border into Pakistan under the protection of tribal leaders from their Pashtun ethnic group.
The sources said the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was trying to rally his remaining followers. Omar was either travelling with or was remaining in close communications with terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, they added.
The Pentagon said US special forces were in southern Afghanistan, working on the next phase of the campaign against the Taliban and bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorists. Washington is intent on hunting down Taliban leaders and bin Laden, who may seek refuge in caves, underground bunkers or rugged mountains and scores of other hiding places.
In a radio address, Omar said he was in Kandahar - a report that could not be verified - and urged his fighters to resist in the name of Islam.
Accompanied by 1,000 armed men, a former governor of Kandahar, Gul Agha Sherzai, left last night for the city from Quetta in Pakistan in what he said was a bid to persuade the Taliban to surrender.
An aide to Sherzai said the decision was taken after a three-day meeting in Pakistan of Afghan Pashtun tribal elders and former guerrilla commanders.
There were several front lines to the southeast and south of Kabul, but no reports of heavy fighting, according to the northern alliance.
In Kabul, the Northern Alliance today took over key posts and ministries despite a pledge to support a broad-based government.
Alliance officials returned to ministries such as defence and interior, which they abandoned in 1996 when the Taliban drove them from power. They also announced plans to resume broadcast services, including television which the Taliban had banned.
Relieved residents in the capital awoke day after a night free of the nearby crash of US bombs. Triumphant Alliance fighters patrolled the streets.
Mohammed Alam Ezdediar, who headed a northern alliance radio station before Kabul fell, assumed control of the newly renamed Radio Afghanistan and resumed airing music which the Taliban had banned as frivolous.
He hired three women as news readers, and the radio broadcast statements from the Alliance defence ministry urging people to remain calm and return to work. Under the Taliban, women were banned from working outside the home except in the health sector.
Daoud Naimi, the new acting director of TV Afghanistan, said he hoped to resume television broadcasts soon. Television was also banned by the Taliban as un-Islamic.
The Taliban, who had ruled since 1996, abandoned Kabul and headed south before dawn yesterday after the northern alliance, backed by intensive American bombing, fought their way to the edge of the city.
