Sunday November 11 5:06 AM ET

Afghan Alliance at Kabul's Gates, Taliban Retreat

By Rosalind Russell and Roger Atwood

JABAL-US-SARAJ/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s opposition captured a town commanding the main road to Kabul on Sunday and said it could launch an attack on the capital anytime, while the ruling Taliban said it had made a strategic retreat in the north.

Following up their battlefield victories against the Taliban this weekend in northern Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance said it captured the town of Pul-i-Khumri, just northwest of Kabul.

``We have now reached the gates of Kabul from the north and our troops can launch an attack for Kabul any time,'' said alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem by satellite telephone.

The Taliban had yet to confirm the capture of the town.

Mindful of the carnage that was unleashed the last time the minority Afghan tribes in the alliance entered Kabul in the early 1990s, President Bush (news - web sites) urged them to bypass the capital and press the campaign in the south.

POSSIBLE ANARCHY IN AFGHANISTAN

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, joining Bush and other world leaders at a U.N. summit in New York, warned of anarchy if an effective political strategy was not devised.

A Pakistani newspaper, which said it interviewed Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) in Afghanistan, reported on Sunday the Saudi-born militant said he knew nothing about anthrax-tainted letters sent to U.S. media and government offices.

But the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks that killed about 4,600 people in America and who lives in hiding in Afghanistan as a Taliban ``guest,'' claimed to have nuclear and chemical weapons and might use them to respond to U.S. attacks.

The alliance said it swept Taliban forces from four northern provinces on Saturday, a day after routing them in the strategic crossroads city of Mazar-i-Sharif in their first major victory of the U.S.-led war.

A Taliban spokesman said on Sunday the fundamentalist militia had strategically withdrawn from three provinces -- Samangan, Jowzjan and Sara-i-Pol -- but disputed alliance claims that Faryab had also been captured.

``There is nothing to worry about,'' the spokesman told Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press. ``Our forces are re-grouping and left those places under a strategy.''

WESTERN OFFENSIVE

Northern Alliance forces said they were now mapping an assault on the western city of Qala-i-Nau.

``Inshallah (God willing), we will launch our offensive against the Taliban in Qala-i-Nau (Sunday) night and we are hopeful of victory, a spokesman for veteran Afghan mujahideen commander Ismail Khan said by satellite phone.

The victory at Mazar-i-Sharif, which straddles a key supply route between Uzbekistan and Kabul and commands the road to Herat in the west, could allow a ``land bridge'' to supply military and humanitarian aid to anti-Taliban forces and the Afghan civilian population as the bitter winter looms.

General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who led the alliance to victory in Mazar-i-sharif, said by satellite phone his troops were marching west to link up with Khan's in a push to secure Herat.

Herat is on the main road to southern Kandahar, powerbase of the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

U.S. Vietnam War-vintage B-52s again carpet-bombed Taliban forces dug in north of the capital Kabul on Sunday in the 36th day of the campaign. And hundreds of opposition troops, backed by tanks and artillery, were poised for an assault at Bagram airport, some 30 km (20 miles) north of Kabul.

The opposition has said if its forces near Kabul pushed toward the capital they would halt outside the city, where opposition figures are hated for the internecine battles for power in the early 1990s that killed some 50,000 residents.

The fundamentalist Taliban were welcomed as peace-keepers when they swept into Kabul and threw out the mujahideen in 1996.

After meeting with Musharraf on Saturday, Bush said opposition forces were encouraged to detour around Kabul.

``We will encourage our friends to head south...but not into the city of Kabul itself. And we believe we can accomplish our military missions by that strategy,'' Bush said.

Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said they agreed with the United States and other countries that Afghanistan should be ruled in future by a government representing all ethnic factions.

``But we do not commit ourselves to this if there is a political vacuum in Kabul,'' Abdullah told Reuters by satellite phone. ``But we would first consult the international community.''

Most members of the Taliban are from the majority Pashtun tribe, predominant in southern Afghanistan and in parts of Pakistan, which is reluctant host to millions of Afghan refugees.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2001