Afghanistan - Opposition says fighting rages north of Kabul

Associated Press | September 9, 2001 | KATHY GANNON

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Fighter jets roared low over the capital of Kabul Sunday heading north to the front lines where Taliban and opposition forces were engaged in a bitter battle.

Opposition soldiers, led by ousted defense chief Ahmed Shah Massood, said throughout the night Taliban fighter jets pounded their positions about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kabul.

Several Taliban soldiers were apparently arrested, according to opposition spokesman, Bismillah Khan. Among those arrested was a fighter from Sudan, identified as Abdul Tuwab, he said. The northern-based opposition controls pockets of the country -- roughly 5 percent and the Taliban rule in the remaining 95 percent.

The opposition strongly criticizes the Taliban Islamic militia for employing foreign warriors from Arab countries and from Pakistan. There are reportedly hundreds of foreign fighters on Taliban frontlines, although the Taliban deny the accusation.

Occasionally the opposition arrests a warrior from another country and on several occasions in the past two months the Taliban have returned the bodies of several Pakistanis, who were killed on the frontline.

On at least two occasions the bodies of Pakistanis felled in battle in Afghanistan were returned home by Taliban helicopters that landed near the border, according to eye witnesses.

The Pakistani authorities say their citizens fighting in Afghanistan are often students of the religious schools that teach a version of Islam akin to that followed by the Taliban.

The United States accuses Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden of operating a terrorist network from his bases in Afghanistan. The Taliban, who have refused to hand him over, deny the charge.

The battleground between the Taliban and its opponents are north of Kabul as well as in the northern provinces of Takhar, Kunduz and Badakhshan.

Massood heads a fractured opposition, that is a collection of groups who fought each other when they ruled Kabul from 1992 until 1996 when the Taliban seized control.

The fighting which annually rages during the warm summer months has been erratic this year, with no major battles and no major territorial losses on either side.

The Taliban's brand of Islam is also followed by some of the groups that make up the opposition. Most analysts say that the civil war ravaging Afghanistan is a power and territorial struggle rather than an ideological one.

Successive attempts by the United Nations to broker a peace agreement in Afghanistan has failed. Since the latest round of sanctions imposed last January the Taliban have refused to participate in any U.N.-brokered talks accusing the global body of being a party to the conflict.

The Taliban charges from the one-sided arms embargo that bars weapons to the Taliban but not to Massood's northern alliance, which is believed to be getting assistance from Iran, Russia and several Central Asian states.

Pakistan, one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban, is believed to be arming and aiding the Taliban.

Copyright 2001 Associated Press, All rights reserved