NYPost

'BAN ON THE RUN

By JOHN LEHMANN

November 26, 2001 -- Waves of U.S. troops hit the ground for a mass attack on the Taliban's last stronghold of Kandahar last night, as Northern Alliance troops secured the militants' final northern refuge.

Only hours before the assault, hundreds of hard-core Taliban prisoners staged a violent uprising in a makeshift jail, triggering fears that a U.S. soldier was killed.

In the south, a stream of U.S. Chinook helicopters flew troops to a site near where tribal fighters seized the airport outside Kandahar.

Some of the helicopters were reportedly shipping in armored vehicles - the first U.S. armor to hit Afghanistan.

A spokesman for Gud Fida Mohammad, a commander of the Achakzai tribe fighting at the airport, said huge aircraft circled over head while a stream of helicopters constantly flew in.

The Pentagon declined to comment, but the Northern Alliance's control of the Taliban's last northern base, the ancient city of Kunduz, has opened the way for a final assault on Kandahar.

Rival anti-Taliban forces led by Uzbek Dostum and Tajik commander Mohammad Daoud marched on Kunduz yesterday, but its final fall was delayed due to confusion over who would get the spoils.

Taliban fighters also began to flee from the town of Spin Boldak, near the Pakistan border.

Outside Kunduz yesterday, witnesses saw reinforcements of tanks, armored personnel carriers and infantry heading toward the ancient city from the east.

In the other direction, streams of pickups loaded with hundreds of black-turbaned Taliban fighters arrived in alliance territory to surrender.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted sources in Kunduz as saying 2,500 of Dostum's troops were already inside the city, and that the Taliban had handed over military installations.

In Kunduz, a soldier in an advance party said the Taliban's resistance had not been strong. "It was not fierce fighting," he said.

Dostum's forces and other Northern Alliance troops have been laying siege to Kunduz for more than 10 days.

But there has confusion within alliance ranks due to a rivalry between the Uzbek and Tajik ethnic factions, which both wanted to win control of the city - and the cache of cars and weapons.

"I'll be very happy when I can defeat international terrorists, and I hope, too, that I can take a car of the international terrorists," said Maraj Adin, and eager 16-year-old fighter under Daoud.

After the fall of the town of Khanabad, the eastern gateway to Kunduz 12 miles away, Daoud had said his forces would enter the city today.

"We want to avoid fighting, and we are still negotiating with the Taliban in Kunduz and hope to capture it without a fight," he said from his mud-walled fort near Khanabad.

But after hearing that some of Dostum's soldiers had already entered, Daoud was left insisting there was no such thing as competition within the alliance.

"There is no difference between a soldier of Dostum and a soldier of mine," Daoud declared as he ordered his forces to move into Kunduz.

"I'm sure there will be no fighting in our future," the general said, when asked whether the confusion over first entry to Kunduz boded more trouble among the allied factions.

Alliance commanders have often been their own worst enemies, giving free rein to infighting that brought down their government when it held power in the 1990s.

Daoud had said he foresaw little resistance unless Pakistani, Chechen and Arab fighters loyal to terror lord Osama bin Laden keep their vows to fight to the death rather than surrender.

While the alliance has promised to forgive Afghan Taliban fighters, Dostum has said the mercenaries must face trial.

Many of the foreign fighters, possibly aware that up to 600 Taliban bodies were found in Mazar-e-Sharif after Dostum took it, fear summary justice.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Answers

AFP

Monday November 26, 5:32 PM

US forces move on Kandahar

US troops, tanks and artillery were reported landing south of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in an apparent offensive against the last major pocket of militia resistance.

Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said the city was under intense US bombardment as troops and material landed near an airport 20 kilometres (12 miles) to the south and tribal uprisings flared elsewhere in the southern province.

Senior Northern Alliance officials in the capital said terror suspect Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were trapped in Kandahar and surrounded.

The Pakistan-based AIP agency quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying that local tribal forces had taken a major road leading from Kandahar to the border with Pakistan and had cut all traffic.

The move on Kandahar, the base of Mullah Omar, came a day after the militia's remaining northern bastion in the city of Kunduz crumbled under pressure from besieging Northern Alliance forces.

US special forces have been on the ground in Afghanistan for weeks, hunting their primary target bin Laden, who is blamed for the September 11 attacks in the United States.

US President George W. Bush last week addressed airborne troops at their base in the United States, warning of difficult ground operations against bin Laden's followers holed up in caves and hideouts around Afghanistan.

Taliban forces as well as hardcore members of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network are believed to have massed in and around Kandahar following their rapid retreat from the northern half of the country over the past two weeks.

But bin Laden's location is still a mystery, with the Taliban last week insisting they had lost all contact with their "guest" who has lived in Afghanistan under the militia's protection since 1996.

US officials have warned that the Islamic militia's flight from the north may have been a strategic withdrawal, but it is unclear how much Taliban hardware survived the US airstrikes on the way south.

Pentagon officials were quoted Sunday by ABC news as saying that US Marines were on the ground near Kandahar and their numbers would reach 1,200 to 1,600 within a day, in a rapid buildup of potent military force.

"US marines are on the ground near Kandahar. They will go in phases. Within a day, there will be 1,200 to 1,600 US marines on the ground," the report said.

"Their first job will be to secure the airport near Kandahar, and then their primary goal will be to attack Taliban targets."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said from London no British troops are involved in the US military operation around Kandahar.

"There are no British troops involved at the moment," Straw told BBC radio, declining to confirm details about the US mission.

The Marines are from two amphibious ready groups that were floating in the Arabian Sea until Sunday, ABC reported.

US warplanes pounded Taliban positions inside Kandahar city Monday and all wireless contact with other provinces had been cut off, AIP said.

Afghan tribemen told AFP some 30 US troops landed at Toor Kotal, around five kilometers (three miles) from Kandahar airport, late on Sunday night, capturing two stinger missiles.

American troops and at least one helicopter also had been seen around Takhtapul, 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of the Kandahar airport on the road to Pakistan, where tribal forces had taken control, AIP reported.

Further east along the same road, the border town of Spin Boldak was also under attack by tribesmen close to former Kandahar governor Haji Gul Agha, one of his relatives told AFP.

Spin Boldak is some 120 kilometers (72 miles) from Kandahar city and the major crossing between southern Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a possible escape route for Taliban or al-Qaeda leaders trying to flee Kandahar.

"A highway between Spin Boldak and Kandahar city has been captured by tribal fighters and now this is closed for all traffic," a Taliban spokesman told AIP from Spin Boldak.

"The tribal fighters managed to capture Takhtapul," he confirmed.

In the north, the Taliban had lost control of Kunduz, their last major foothold other than the southern provinces, after thousands of militiamen surrendered on Saturday and Sunday.

Northern Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said troops on Monday entered Kunduz but sporadic fighting with die-hard Taliban defenders was continuing in the city, near the border with Tajikistan.

Alliance officials also said a bloody siege of mutinous hardcore Taliban prisoners continued in Mazar-i-Sharif to the west.

Hundreds of mainly Arab, Pakistani and Chechen prisoners, who surrendered from Kunduz over the weekend, rose up against their Northern Alliance guards in Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday, reportedly killing one US adviser.

One witness spoke of about 100 dead in the ensuing battle, while a Time magazine correspondent said he had heard 300 to 400 Taliban were killed as waves of US airstrikes, directed by US and British commandos, pounded the prison.

Mohammad Alam, spokesman for Alliance commander Atta Mohammad, said there had been no further incidents since Sunday's uprising.

"We are watching them to prevent them escaping. If they try, we will open fire," he added. "Some among them who tried to tried to leave were bombed."

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Sounds somewhat good. I'm so glad the tribals are getting involved. Needless to say, I'd prefer they do the heavy lifting.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Me too. The way this is shaping up, though, I'd hazard a guess that the Marines are there for support, as in "drop the bomb here," "put the mortar there." I hope.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Just saw video of what looked like earth-moving equipment slung from a helicopter, just leaving a carrier. They may be repairing the airport mentioned above (which has been reported as formerly OBL's private airport) so that relief and other supplies can be flown in on C-130s or whatever.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001