U.S. Winning War!!
Gentleman Jim
acknowledged Saturday that they lost the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, while
the northern alliance opposition claimed to have also seized three
northern provincial capitals. An opposition commander said an attack
on the capital, Kabul, would start within days.
Following the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif, an opposition commander,
Mohammed Mohaqik, said anti-Taliban forces quickly seized three
northern provincial capitals - Shibarghan in Jozjan province; Aybak in
Samangan province; and Maimana in Faryab province.
There was no comment from the Taliban on the opposition claims, and no
foreign reporters were in the area. However, taking Aybak would cut
the main escape route for Taliban soldiers withdrawing from
Mazar-e-Sharif to Kabul.
If the other northern towns have also fallen, the Taliban may be
abandoning large swaths of territory populated by ethnic minorities
and redeploying their forces to defend Kabul and other strongholds of
the dominant Pashtun ethnic group.
"This morning the city is quiet," said Karim Khalili, spokesman for
the Shiite Muslim opposition, said of Mazar-e-Sharif. "There is no
fighting. All the Taliban are gone."
The capture of Mazar-e-Sharif was the biggest success since President
Bush launched airstrikes Oct. 7 to force the Taliban to hand over
Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on
the United States.
With Mazar-e-Sharif in opposition hands, the U.S.-led coalition can
open a land bridge to Uzbekistan, 45 miles to the north, to rush in
humanitarian goods and military supplies to anti-Taliban forces.
Mazar-e-Sharif also has a large airport that could be refurbished for
American and allied aircraft to conduct humanitarian missions and
mount attacks against the Taliban from within Afghanistan.
Following the Taliban withdrawal from the city, opposition officials
said hundreds of Arab and Pakistani volunteers fighting with the
Islamic militia had holed up in a school six miles west of
Mazar-e-Sharif.
Mohaqik of the opposition Shiite faction said anti-Taliban forces
overran the school, captured 50 Pakistanis and Arabs and killed
another 1,000 of them. Earlier another Shiite Muslim spokesman Saeed
Zaher Wasik said the opposition wanted to take the captives alive.
The report could not be confirmed, and the Taliban denied it. Abdul
Hanan Hemat, chief of the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency, said
"there are no troops under siege and that the bulk of the Taliban
forces had withdrawn to Samangan province east of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Hemat also said the Taliban withdrew from Mazar-e-Sharif under orders
from the Defense Ministry to save the soldiers and the city.
"We did not want to risk our soldiers or have the city destroyed, so
we left," he said. "But our morale is high. Losing Mazar-e-Sharif has
not damaged our spirit."
He said the opposition would have been unable to take the city had it
not been for a week of relentless bombing by U.S. jets.
The various reports could not be confirmed, because no foreign
reporters have been allowed near Mazar-e-Sharif.
The fall of the strategic city boosted opposition morale on the other
main front, about 30 miles north of Kabul. Alim Khan, a northern
alliance commander there, said an attack on the city was to start
within three days and that 1,000 opposition troops planned to assemble
Sunday at Bagram, site of an opposition-controlled air base near the
front line.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters it would
be best if the opposition did not move immediately toward Kabul, since
the city's population is likely to be hostile to it.
Meanwhile, American B-52 bombers and other warplanes attacked north of
Kabul on Saturday, and enormous clouds of smoke billowed skyward from
Taliban positions.
Capitalizing on their victory, anti-Taliban troops also took control
of Hairatan on the Afghan border with Uzbekistan, said Mohammed Abil,
a spokesman for Burhanuddin Rabbani, the titular head of the Afghan
opposition.
Abil said opposition soldiers had also taken Taliban mountaintop
positions overlooking Taloqan, the capital of northeast Takhar
province and the headquarters of the anti-Taliban alliance until it
fell to Taliban troops in September 2000.
The residents of Mazar-e-Sharif warmly greeted triumphant alliance
fighters when they entered the city, said Mohammed Hasham Saad, the
top opposition official in Uzbekistan. Most people in the city, along
with the majority of northern alliance soldiers, are ethnic Tajiks and
Uzbeks.
"They helped our forces move inside of the city and gave them food and
information," Saad said. Some civilians pointed out Taliban positions
to alliance fighters, he said.
He said Radio Mazar-e-Sharif had begun broadcasting and that one of
the first messages to the people was from Rabbani, the former Afghan
president who was ousted by the Taliban in 1996.
In Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the northern alliance's foreign minister,
Abdullah, said the Taliban had left 20 tanks and many heavy weapons
behind. At least 20 Taliban fighters were killed and hundreds were
taken prisoner, he said.
Anti-Taliban troops at the front were cheered by the news of the fall
of Mazar-e-Sharif, which changed hands several times in the late 1990s
and was the site of massacres. Villagers crowded around transistor
radios to hear the latest news.
"This is the beginning of the collapse of the Taliban," said Nur Agha,
a 22-year-old fighter.
Mohammad Afzal Amon, the commander of the opposition's elite Zarbati
troops north of Kabul, said 600 troops had been sent to his area since
the victory in Mazar-e-Sharif.
SuperNova
[holy law] says Muslims should not live in the land of the infidel for long. The
September 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets
were America’s icons of military and economic power.”
- Osama Bin Laden on his intentions with the September 11 attack and
justifications.
reference: http://www.msnbc.com/news/655528.asp
SuperNova
BTW, notice that he explains the guilt of the Muslims who have died
and who die in the future because of his terrorism in that statement.
Pretty sick.
RTO Trainer
wrote:
The limit for crossposting to us.military.army is three groups.
This isn't too far off-topic so let me ask that you trim one of the
groups from your posts in the future if you are going to continue
posting to us.military.army.
Thanks.
SuperNova
In a post, or a piggyback like this was, I will try and keep
that in mind. But, not in a reply. I will grant my "reply" was
a piggyback designed to draw out extremist's who might be
routinely trampled on in turn.
I have researched now, that newsgroup and yourself. I am not
changing the header in this reply, so I do not know if you will
get this.