Afghan rebels say they've captured
key city; Pentagon can't confirm claim
By Lisa Burgess,
Washington bureau
ARLINGTON, Va. — Northern Alliance claims that they captured the city of Mazar-e
Sharif were "encouraging," Pentagon officials said, but they would not confirm
that the transfer actually took place.
"There’s a lot of dust in the air right now," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem
said Friday. "There are skirmishes across these various fronts and with that dust in
the air, it’s very hard to tell what’s exactly going on."
If the Taliban militia were forced to retreat from this key northern city, the event
would mark the first real victory by the opposition in its years-old campaign to defeat
the ruling regime.
More important for the U.S. military is that the city could be used to establish an
in-country route from Uzbekistan, to resupply opposition troops with weapons and fuel and
to send large quantities of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan’s citizens —
millions of whom are in danger of starving in the coming winter months.
The opposition’s attack on Mazar-e Sharif followed a three-day advance on the city
that was aided by intense U.S. bombing. U.S. special operations forces embedded with
various alliance factions helped in the campaign by identifying targets, Stufflebeem said.
The United States has dropped about 8,000 bombs on Afghanistan since the campaign began
five weeks ago, he said.
Although the Pentagon was still sorting through "a mosaic of different kinds of
reports," Stufflebeem seemed cautiously pleased by what he said "may be the
first place where we see the opposition get the upper hand" in Afghanistan.
"From the military perspective, taking control away from the Taliban is
important," Stufflebeem said. "This is likely to be a psychological loss to the
Taliban."
Meanwhile, independent reports from the region appeared to support the alliance’s
claims of victory against the Taliban.
Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord who controlled Mazar-e Sharif until the Taliban
captured the city three years ago, told Turkey’s CNN-Turk television that the
alliance overran the city in a half-hour.
Dostum, who claimed to be speaking by satellite telephone from a hill overlooking
Mazar-e Sharif, said that Taliban troops appeared to be retreating east toward Samangan
province.
The Taliban itself confirmed that opposition troops had entered southern parts of
Mazar-e Sharif "after heavy American bombing," according to the Pakistan-based
Afghan Islamic Press.
Once the opposition forces have control of Mazar-e Sharif, however, they will be faced
with the challenge of holding it — a notoriously difficult task in urban
environments, especially because close air support is so difficult to utilize without
taking massive civilian casualties.
"You certainly introduce a new problem when ground is taken and you have to defend
it," Stufflebeem said.
Stufflebeem said the Pentagon does not know whether the Taliban is preparing — or
has the capability to prepare — for a counterattack to regain Mazar-e Sharif,
although he said that "we are seeing reports that the Taliban is trying to
resupply" itself.
"We don’t know" if the Taliban can counterattack, Stufflebeem said.
"The absence of an indication may not mean that they can’t do it, but that they
have chosen not to do it for their own reasons."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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