Taliban forces across northern Afghanistan appeared to be in headlong rout after the dramatic fall of the key city of Mazar-e-Sharif to the Northern Alliance forces supported by US bombers and Special Forces. Yesterday rebel fighters were reported to be attacking Taliban positions across Afghanistan's north-west, as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, claimed his men had captured four provinces from the Taliban in 48 hours of intensive fighting.
Pentagon sources said yesterday that at least two US Special Forces units had been engaged in the fighting for the city, helping with communications and 'coordination' and acting as forward air controllers - or spotters - for the American planes bombing Taliban front lines.
In one of their first acts, Northern Alliance commanders announced that women in Mazar-e Sharif and other liberated towns would no longer be compelled to wear the burqa, the all-encompassing veil.
The attack continued to be pressed home last night as Osama bin Laden admitted for the first time that his death at the hands of American forces or their allies now appeared 'inevitable'. Bin Laden's comments were made public yesterday as thousands of Taliban fighters were reported to be fleeing towards Kabul with US Navy FA-18 bombers harrying their retreat.
Along more than 100 miles of the Soviet-built Salang highway, Taliban soldiers in jeeps, trucks and pickups struggled to escape the pursuing Northern Alliance. Their numbers were swollen by troops from garrisons along the route and units bordering Uzbekistan.
By last night elements of the Northern Alliance, which seized Mazar on Friday, had reportedly captured the town of Pol-e-Khomri, halfway along the Salang highway towards Kabul.
In front of them, there were chaotic scenes as US warplanes struck the tangled columns. 'Today we have captured Samangan, Sara-i-Pol, Faryab and Jowzjan,' Dostum told Reuters by satellite telephone last night.
He said his troops were now advancing on western Badghis in a move that would allow him to join his troops with those of Mujahideen general Ismail Khan near the strategic western city of Herat. Only in the city of Taloqan were Taliban forces, equipped with dug-in tanks, reported to be putting up any real resistance.
Radio messages intercepted by the Northern Alliance gave a snapshot of the chaos and terror of the Taliban rout as commanders begged their men to do whatever they could to avoid the bombs. Thousands more soldiers, cut off from the Salang highway, fled east on foot and by truck into the desert trying to reach Konduz, the last remaining northern stronghold of the Taliban.
Bin Laden, however, remained defiant this weekend. In an interview with a Pakistani journalist at an undisclosed location close to Kabul he claimed to have both nuclear and chemical weapons 'as a deterrent'.
'If America used them against us we reserve the right to use them,' he told Hamid Mir, editor of a major Urdu-language newspaper. Mir described bin Laden as 'confident and in high spirits' despite the knowledge that the Americans will kill him 'sooner and later'.
'My cause will continue after my death,' bin Laden told Mir.
Friday's capture of Mazar-e-Sharif was described by Prime Minister Tony Blair as a clear sign that the Taliban and bin Laden's al-Qaeda network were being defeated. He said: 'I think it is clear the momentum is obviously with the international coalition.'
But he stressed that the coalition still had much work to do in several fields before the campaign would be concluded successfully. 'We have got to work on the other aspects, the military campaign, the political campaign and, of course, what is happening on the humanitarian side to make sure that we bring this to a successful conclusion.'
Yesterday even the Alliance appeared stunned by the suddenness of their victory, and by the spectacle of units whose advance is limited not by the shattered Taliban forces, but by the petrol in the tanks of their vehicles.
'The Taliban lost their morale, that's why it happened so quickly,' said Interior Minister Yonus Qanuni.
The Alliance said 95 Taliban soldiers were killed in fighting for the city, with an estimated 10,000 either fled or captured. According to one source, 28 Alliance soldiers died in Friday's attack. Alliance officials said 20 tanks, plus arms, ammunition and fuel, had fallen into their hands.
The head of the Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency, Abdul Henon Hemat, said his forces has quit the city only after sustained pressure. 'For seven days continously they have been bombing,' he said. 'They used very large bombs. Our troops still have very high morale. They left to save the city.'
Mazar-e-Sharif was reported quiet, with its population of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaris welcoming their ethnic brethren. A state of emergency has been declared for a week in the city as opposition forces scour the 200,000 strong city for Taliban fugitives.
Meanwhile, an Alliance column struck north to the Uzbekistan border to find the frontier post at Hairaton deserted. Qanuni said the capture of the bridge without a fight opens the way for massive shipments of arms and humanitarian aid to be sent into Afghanistan. 'We were worried they might have blown the bridge before they left, but they did not have time.'
It was over this bridge in 1979 that the Soviets poured at the start of their 10-year occupation of Afghanistan. Now the Alliance hopes the Americans will pour in weapons, tanks and supplies to replenish anti-Taliban forces.
There will be relief in the White House and Downing Street about the progress in a war that, until 48 hours ago, appeared to be going nowhere, and the absence of the fabled fanaticism that Taliban had long boasted of.
But there is anxiety too. Washington and London fear that the collapse of the Taliban could be so widespread that the Alliance could walk into Kabul, triggering a massive wave of refugees and a political crisis for a country with no clear idea of what will replace Taliban rule.
But the Alliance, after weeks of frustration, now has the bit between its teeth and wants to go on to Kabul. 'We have to clear out the areas behind our strongholds. Only after that is Kabul important,' said Qanuni. 'We expect our troops to be at the gates of Kabul. We hope to finish this in two weeks.'
How can this be? Just last week these weasels from the newspapers were telling us that the Taliban are the World's Toughest Guys, raised from childhood to be merciless warriors. Why, each one could kill ten Americans with his bare hands, and then bite the head off a snake, just for fun. And now they're unraveling like a cheap suit?