Abdullah said alliance forces had no choice but to enter the the capital despite opposition from other countries, including the United States. When the Taliban suddenly withdrew from Kabul this morning, disturbances by armed "irresponsible people" forced the alliance to march in and secure the city, he said, according to CNN.
Alliance officials said their forces also captured Zaranj, a town in southwestern Afghanistan, which borders Iran.
They had earlier seized the nearby province of Nimrooz, driving the Taliban forces toward Kandahar.
"We are now moving toward Kandahar and will soon capture it as well," said an opposition spokesman.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
U.S. Chases Fleeing Taliban Troops
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
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Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2001WASHINGTON – U.S. planes are pursuing Taliban forces as they flee Kabul, a retreat Pentagon officials characterize as "disorganized" and making it seem the withdrawal is not a strategic decision to consolidate Taliban troops in Kandahar, but a real defeat.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is less than convinced that the battle is won yet.
"I'd like to caution everyone that this effort against terrorism and terrorists is far from over," he said Tuesday. "We are clearly in this for the long haul."
Anti-Taliban forces are present in more than half of Afghanistan and control all the northern provinces, up from just 15 percent when the campaign began two months ago, the Pentagon said.
The United States soon will begin repairing runways at airstrips near Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul to build a "land bridge" between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan for humanitarian aid and weapons and supplies for the opposition. Those bases will be secured by troops, an effort Rumsfeld has not ruled out for U.S. military forces. More than 1,000 Army soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division are poised in Uzbekistan.
"Whether they'll be U.S. or some other country's is one of the questions that's open," Rumsfeld said.
The retreat "appears to be more disorganized than organized," said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers. "It's a combination of retreat, defections, withdrawal and just trying to blend in to the landscape."
Myers credited U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks with the decision early in the conflict to focus bombs on destroying Taliban command and control, helicopters and transport planes, forcing soldiers flee on foot and by car.
They are running west and east from Mazar-i-Sharif, which the Northern Alliance rebel groups captured on Nov. 9, and south out of Kabul.
U.S. strike aircraft are giving chase.
"The trick is trying to differentiate between Taliban" and others, as many soldiers have commandeered vehicles owned by relief agencies.
Challenged by a reporter, Rumsfeld defended the military's decision to attack the retreating force.
"They have obviously been offered an opportunity to surrender," he said. "In the history of warfare when things aren't going well for an organization that is often an opportune time to make progress.
"They are not surrendering. They are not throwing down their weapons. They are a perfectly legitimate and attractive target," he said.
He echoed Myers' caution about attacking fleeing forces but not civilian refugees or prisoners.
"We have to sort them from the air," he said.
Helping matters in the south is the fact that U.S. Special Forces are now on the ground in southern Afghanistan to direct air strikes and try to rally ethnic Pashtun tribes against the Taliban.
"They are currently functioning independent of the tribes, and they are doing things helpful to our side and unhelpful to the other side," Rumsfeld said.
A small number of U.S. special forces are now in Kabul, Rumsfeld said. He said the Northern Alliance's progress on the ground was encouraging Pashtun tribes to resist the Taliban. The Northern Alliance is composed largely of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks.
"As movement occurs in the north some of the tribes in the south become more active," he said.
Despite reports of dancing in the streets of Kabul, Rumsfeld and Myers were hardly jubilant at the apparent success of the 38-day campaign. Rumsfeld even resisted an invitation from a reporter to gloat after enduring weeks of criticism for what seemed like a stalled effort in Afghanistan.
"We're still such a good distance from where we have to go," Rumsfeld said. "We do need to find the leadership of al-Qaeda and the leadership of the Taliban and the senior people and to stop them. And then we need to address that network and other networks elsewhere in the world. But it will take time."
Rumsfeld reiterated the nature of the multifaceted campaign, a theme he frequently emphasizes in his press briefings: that three-quarters of the war on terrorism is action the public can not see but that puts pressure on terrorists and the governments who harbor them.
He says the United States will win the war "when a person gets up in the morning and says: 'It's not worth it. I'm either dead or I'm wounded or there's no place to go, or I don't have food and I can't get anyone on the telephone and I don't know what to do next ...'"
Rumsfeld refused to comment directly on United Nations reports that 100 people have been massacred in Mazar-i-Sharif since the Northern Alliance moved in last week.
The Northern Alliance has almost as egregious a reputation with human rights as the Taliban.
U.S. Special Forces in the region are encouraging the opposition forces with which they are traveling not to violate international law, but said loss of life was impossible to avoid.
"There is no question people are getting killed. I don't doubt that for a minute," he said at a Pentagon news conference.
But he noted this city had changed hands "dozens of times" over the centuries and that each time involved a bloodletting, noting the Taliban did the same thing when it took over Mazar-i-Sharif five years ago.
"The last time the place changed hands the Taliban came in and killed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people," he said. "I'll guess when this is over this will have proved to be the change of hands with the least loss of life."
Myers displayed an aerial photo of five Taliban tanks sandwiched between a mosque and a residential neighborhood in Kabul, evidence that the regime is intentionally using civilians as "human shields," as the Pentagon has stated for weeks.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
Rebels Massacre Taliban Soldiers
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
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Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2001WASHINGTON – Northern Alliance forces massacred about 100 Taliban recruits they found hiding in a school in Mazar-i-Sharif, U.N. officials said Tuesday.
"Today in Mazar we’ve had several sources that have corroborated that over 100 Taliban troops who were young recruits hiding in a school were killed by Northern Alliance Saturday,” said Stephanie Bunker, a U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad.
Bunker said U.N. offices in Islamabad also had reports from Mazar-i-Sharif of fighting as well as "punitive action” and looting.
Bunker said "small-scale” looting had also taken place in Kabul, where troops from the Taliban militia fled overnight and left the city open to opposition forces.
"Contacts in Kabul say under the current circumstances it’s difficult to know who has been responsible,” Bunker said. "Although the Taliban seemed to have left the city last night, there was still some shooting in areas of the city in the morning which seemed at last report this afternoon to have died down now.
"As of midafternoon, special forces of the Northern Alliance had entered the city and are posted at intersections,” Bunker added. "Apparently efforts are being made to keep the situation under control. Guards are being assigned to protect United Nations premises. It also appears that in some areas of the city people in neighborhoods are organizing themselves to try to protect themselves and their properties.”
Bunker stressed that the situation on the ground in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif was changing rapidly and that information remained sketchy.
Taliban's Ambassador to Pakistan Flees
In Islamabad, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, left the city for Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, abandoning the radical militia’s last diplomatic mission in the world.
Khalid Khawaja, a longtime associate of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden with close ties to the Taliban, said Zaeef had joined other Taliban leaders in Kandahar, where they planned to remain despite Northern Alliance advances.
"They don’t have to leave Kandahar,” said Khawaja, who stays in touch with Taliban leadership via radio from his home in Islamabad.
Khawaja said the Taliban believed that the Northern Alliance forces were stretched too thin to mount an assault on Kandahar after taking Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul in a lightning sweep over northern Afghanistan that began Friday.
Despite the losses, Khawaja said Taliban troops remained upbeat, planning a strategy to hold onto Kandahar and, if that fails, to take up positions in the mountainous terrain outside the cities.
"Spirits are so high you can’t imagine,” said Khawaja, who claimed that the Taliban was receiving up to 400 new volunteers a day from areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The Taliban embassy in Islamabad was not empty, despite Zaeef’s absence. A few officials who refused to talk to reporters were at work, but the normally crowded grounds had many fewer people than usual. The status of the mission remained unclear in Pakistan, the only country in the world that still recognizes the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government.
"There is no alternative government established in Afghanistan as yet,” said Aziz Ahmed Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. "The situation is still fluid. We will decide about that when the situation clears a little bit.”
Khan renewed calls on the Northern Alliance to stay out of the city until a permanent government could be negotiated among the warring factions. But in previous statements, Khan said Pakistan would recognize as a government whatever force controlled Kabul and the majority of Afghanistan.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
Residents Wake Up in Post-Taliban Kabul
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Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Opposition Northern Alliance soldiers began entering the Afghan capital, Kabul, early Tuesday as Taliban fighters apparently retreated to their southern stronghold of Kandahar.
Alliance forces patrolled Kabul, sparking celebrations among residents. "Jubilant crowds gathered in the city center, showering flowers on the soldiers of the Northern Alliance," an Afghan worker of the United Nations told his regional office in Islamabad by telephone.
"There are people near the old presidential palace, in front of the Kabul hotel, in Shehar-i-Nao chanting death to Taliban, death to Pakistan," the worker said.
Witnesses said the collapse of the Taliban administration in Kabul was as rapid as the militia's flight from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif three days ago. The Taliban resisted the opposition's assault on Mazar for less than an hour then fled.
The Northern Alliance also claimed capturing the western Afghan city of Herat, the town of Kunduz in central Afghanistan and the strategic Shomali plains north of Kabul.
"The Taliban were nothing without Pakistan's support. They resisted our attacks only as long as the supplies they had received from Pakistan lasted," an Afghan opposition official in Islamabad said.
Witnesses said Taliban troops fled toward their headquarters in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. Columns of vehicles carrying Taliban fighters were seen leaving Kabul overnight.
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters Monday the United States hopes to significantly step up humanitarian aid efforts in the wake of reported Northern Alliance victories.
Clarke would not confirm various Northern Alliance tactical gains but said the Pentagon is "not un-encouraged" by reports from the region.
Gun battles were also reported between the advancing opposition troops and some Taliban forces still remaining in some pockets.
Witnesses also reported seeing bodies of Taliban fighters lying in the streets. They were apparently killed in U.S. airstrikes.
Residents said that the Taliban had collected millions of dollars worth of Afghani and foreign currencies from Kabul's money market before fleeing south.
Also on Monday, Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salaam Zaeef condemned suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden for claiming to possess nuclear weapons, saying it only increases the "pain" of the Afghan people.
Zaeef told the Saudi al Watan newspaper the Taliban was investigating whether bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, had weapons of mass destruction.
"We do not allow Osama to make such statements because they increase the pain of the Afghan people," said Zaeef. "This is insane on the part of Osama ... "
Zaeef also reiterated the Taliban's position regarding the handover of bin Laden saying the militant group would turn the terror suspect over to religious leaders in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries for trial before a religious court.
The Bush administration maintains bin Laden should be handed over to the United States.
In New York, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov met at the United Nations with top diplomats from China, Iran Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to discuss Afghanistan's post-Taliban future.
The so-called "six plus two" group called for a broad-based post-Taliban government freely selected and multi-ethnic.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Powell want to speed up the process of forming a new, broad-based government in Afghanistan to match the military situation.
They want the deposed Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah to head the post-Taliban interim government in Kabul until a permanent, broad-based government is formed.
They fear that the absence of a political setup in Kabul could return the country to the pre-Taliban situation when various ethnic and religious warlords controlled different parts of the country. Busy fighting each other, they plunged the country into a state of perpetual violence and lawlessness.
U.N. officials and international human rights agencies also fear that violence may erupt against the Pashtuns in the areas now under the Northern Alliance's control. U.N. officials are already reporting violence in Mazar where, they said, looting, kidnapping and summary executions were reported.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
Aid workers taken south by departing Taliban
11/14/2001 - Updated 10:46 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The squalid prison compound that housed eight foreign aid workers, including two American women, was dingy and dank with muddy gray walls. The bathroom was a hole in the ground hidden by tattered pieces of burlap. They had been detained in the Afghan capital since Aug. 3, charged with preaching Christianity, but after the Sept. 11 attack in the United States they were taken from a home for wayward children to the prison. Sometime after 6:30 p.m. Monday, their Taliban captors hustled them into a dark blue pickup truck and headed south. They didn't have time to pack for a departure that appeared rushed - and probably surprised the aid workers who may have expected to be freed.
"They were very happy, because they thought they would be released," said Abdul Raouf, one of the guards at the detention center. Another guard had earlier said they left at midnight.
Columns of Taliban troops headed south from Kabul throughout the night after the opposition northern alliance broke through their defenses and rushed to the edge of the city.
"This is a real mess," said John Mercer, the father of the youngest detained aid worker, Heather Mercer, 24. Contacted by satellite telephone in neighboring Pakistan, Mercer said he was trying to get information from the Taliban Embassy about his daughter.
At the detention center, it was apparent the aid workers had left quickly.
Suitcases were sitting on steel bunk beds in a concrete block room that housed the six women — the Americans, Mercer and Dayna Curry; three Germans, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf; and Australian Diana Thomas.
Two socks had been left to dry on a hanger dangling from a top bunk.
There were only four beds in the room. Cushions were placed on the floor against the wall. The blankets were worn and tattered. One pink quilt had patches sewn on it.
A water pump stood in the center of a sandy courtyard and a black sweater was hanging on a clothesline, still damp. There were several plastic pots where the women might have washed their clothes.
The two men — German George Taubmann and Australian Peter Bunch — had a separate room.
In a steel cabinet in the bedroom where the women slept there was shampoo, some apples, face cream, a small bag of medicine, hand soap and a hair brush. Nearby were language texts entitled, "Learning to speak Afghan Pashtu."
Their guards said they were sad to see the aid workers taken away.
"We liked them. They were good people. I think they will be OK because the Taliban had treated them very good," said Rauf.
Baba Hafeez, an old man who looked to be about 70 years old, came to the detention center on his bicycle and quickly identified himself as the cook.
"They got very good food and they were very healthy and very happy," he said. "They always treated me very nicely and would give me money."
On the windowsill was a piece of paper, with Heather Mercer's name on it.
"What a friend I've found. We serve a God of miracles. I cry out. God is good all the time. My hope is in you Lord faithful one, so unchanging," it read.
Heather's father, her mother, Deborah Oddy, and Curry's mother, Nancy Cassell, have been waiting in neighboring Pakistan for word of their daughters.
Cassell said she hoped her daughter had left behind personal items in the Kabul detention center such as letters, and copies of songs that the aid workers wrote together.
Cassell said that before they left Kabul, she had been preparing to send a box of winter clothing, including coats, shoes and gloves.
"I guess it's going to be a little warmer" if the aid workers are taken to Kandahar, said Cassell, of Thompson's Station, Tenn. "Maybe they won't need those things."
Mercer, Oddy and Cassell were in Kabul before the Sept. 11 assault in the United States and were evacuated within two days because the U.S. government feared for their safety. They said they were brokenhearted to have left.
They have not heard from their children since late October when their Pakistani lawyer, Atif Ali Khan, was last in the capital of Kabul.
A package was delivered to the aid workers from their family less than two weeks ago. But the Taliban had refused to allow anyone to see them.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Routing the Taliban Afghan Campaign Enters New Phase After Kabul Captured
Nov. 14
ABCNEWS' Terry Moran, David Wright and John McWethy contributed to this report.
A day after the fall of Kabul, U.S. intelligence sources say Osama bin Laden is on the move amid reports that Kandahar, the southern spiritual heart of the Taliban, has fallen to the Northern Alliance.After a series of rapid-fire victories by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Taliban appeared to be unraveling today as U.S. warplanes continued to stalk the southern Afghan skies, hunting down Taliban soldiers retreating from Kabul to the south.
Amid reports of popular uprisings against the Taliban in eastern and central Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, and his inner circle had left the mountain caves where they were believed to be hiding.
U.S. intelligence sources also said U.S. special operations troops were on the ground in southern Afghanistan and were concentrating on the hunt for bin Laden.
Liberated from the Taliban on Tuesday in a relatively bloodless seizure, Kabul showed signs of returning to pre-Taliban normalcy today with residents blasting Afghan music, flying kites, shaving their beards and revealing their faces — freedoms that were denied them during five years of Taliban rule.
But caught off guard by the speed of the Taliban retreat, the international community has been frantically attempting to fill the potentially dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan despite assurances from the Northern Alliance of their eagerness to cooperate with a potential transitional coalition of multi-ethnic groups.
And despite the scenes of jubilation on the streets of Kabul, the United States has warned that there's still unfinished business to be dealt with in the war-ravaged country.
"This effort against terrorism and terrorists is far from over," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday.
Reports of Advances in the South
Northern Alliance leaders today said the Taliban had lost control of Kandahar, home to the Taliban's reclusive spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Speaking on Iranian television from Kabul, Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said there was chaos in Kandahar and there were "no Taliban officials to be found." But there was no independent confirmation of the reports.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press today reported that Northern Alliance troops had also entered the strategic Afghan city of Jalalabad, located near the famed Khyber Pass. The report could not be independently confirmed.
Northern Alliance leaders said gains made this morning have given it control of more than 80 percent of the nation — a startling turnaround for what last week was a band of rebels clinging on to just five percent of the nation.
Frantic Efforts to Secure a Transitional Government
But for the diplomatic community racing to create a multi-ethnic power-sharing government for the country, the hard work has just begun.
U.N. officials are meeting with representatives of Afghan groups and the "six-plus-two" nations, a loose alliance of Afghanistan's six neighbors plus Russia and the United States, to patch together a transitional government in Kabul.
Hours after the fall of Kabul on Tuesday, Abdullah invited U.N. representatives into Kabul along with other Afghan groups — "Taliban excluded" — for discussions on the country's future administration.
But Afghanistan's former king, Zahir Shah, widely considered a unifying force among Afghanistan's diverse ethnics groups, accused the Northern Alliance of violating an agreement not to enter the capital.
And former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani told the Arabic Al Jazeera network that Shah could only return to Afghanistan as an ordinary citizen. A spokesman for Rabbani said the former president would return to Kabul from London, where he has been based since the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, later today.
Amid frantic diplomatic activity to secure the future of Afghanistan in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the British Ministry of Defense said thousands of British troops are on 48-hour standby to be sent to Afghanistan for peacekeeping operations.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Rumsfeld confirmed there was a limited Northern Alliance force in Kabul to maintain order, accompanied by "a very small number of U.S. forces...to give advice and counsel."
Kabul Rejoices
Despite the presence of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul today, reporters in the Afghan capital said there was a palpable sense that life had changed for the better on the streets.
Music blared at street corners, the bazaars were crowded, women revealed their faces in public for the first time in five years and the barber shops were still crowded as Kabulis indulged in activities denied to them under the strict edicts of the once-powerful Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue.
The Northern Alliance has said it has deployed a security force of about 3,000 troops in Kabul to maintain order following incidents of looting and revenge killings of mostly Pakistani and Arab mercenaries fighting for the Taliban during the early hours of the city's fall.
Private vehicles crossing major checkpoints inside the city were being carefully checked for stray Taliban soldiers on the run and reporters were taken to a suspected al Qaeda office in the heart of the city where Canadian flight manuals and detonators were found.
But the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Omar, is believed to be still in Kandahar, where the Taliban has enjoyed the ethnic support of the majority Pashtun tribesmen.
The Afghan Islamic Press reported that Omar was urging his scattered fighters to regroup and fight and said the fall of Kabul came due to a tactical withdrawal by the Taliban.
But as Taliban troops across the country appeared to be on the run, there were concerns about the fates awaiting many Pakistani and Arab mercenaries who once supported the Taliban.
There were reports of revenge killings of Taliban soldiers across the country and in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, which is now under Northern Alliance control, the International Red Cross said hundreds of people had died and tons of aid supplies were looted.
World Reacts to News
In other developments:
A U.N. spokeswoman in Pakistan said more than 100 Taliban hiding in a school in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif were killed after the Northern Alliance captured the city last week.
Copyright © 2001 ABC News Internet Ventures.
'Today Is Happy Day' in Capital
From: News and Views | Beyond the City |
Tuesday, November 13, 2001
By KATHY GANNON
The Associated PressResidents of this Afghan capital peered through the open doors of abandoned Taliban military bases and whispered to each other, "Are they gone?"
Groups of people huddled in the streets, wrapped in woolen shawls, talking about the unexpected Taliban departure — and pointing out houses of former Taliban commanders.
Northern Alliance soldiers sped through the streets in vehicles that had been left behind by Taliban troops.
Other members of the rebel force moved quickly through Kabul neighborhoods, conducting house-to-house searches and collecting arms as they moved door to door.
"I think there were some Taliban who were asleep when everyone else left," said a smiling resident, Abdul Jan. "They have woken up and they are thinking, 'Oh, my God, what can I do?'"
Many people hugged each other. "Congratulations," one man said to another. "Oh, my God, they are here."
"We are happy. Now I have to go to the barber to shave my beard," said another resident. "Today is a happy day."
Two men on a bicycle looked at each other. "Do you think I can shave now?" one asked.
The Taliban required men to grow long beards and failure to do so invited harsh punishment.
Houses used by Taliban leaders in the once relatively well-to-do neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan were abandoned. The large, steel doors of home of former Health Minister Mullah Abbas Akhund were wide open.
Homes were also abandoned on Street 15 of Wazir Akbar Khan, famous in this area as "the street of guests," a reference to the Arab, Chechen and Uzbek volunteers who were allied with the Taliban and terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden.
The bodies of two men lay near the United Nations guesthouse, outside a military compound in a city that was taken over by opposition northern alliance with virtually no resistance.
Bundles of burned clothes and blankets were piled on top of the corpses, and a charred rocket launcher lay beside one of them.
People gathered to look.
In the money market in the old city, businessmen said departing Taliban soldiers emptied the stores of goods and money.
One money changer, who gave his name as Dr. Wali, said Taliban soldiers on tanks stopped in front of the shops, demanded the money and then rumbled out of the city.
© 2001 Daily News, L.P.
