KABUL/JABAL-US-SARAJ (Islamweb & News Agencies) - U.S. fighter planes blasted Taliban front lines north of Kabul on Saturday and the Afghan opposition said it captured a district south of the crossroads city of Mazar-i-Sharif. (Read photo caption below) After dark, two waves of aircraft roared over Kabul and bombed the east of the capital near the main road to the front line, where the Taliban are dug in facing opposition Northern Alliance forces.
U.S. B-52s have been carpet-bombing the ruling Taliban militia's front line northeast of Kabul for several days.
The United States has been bombing Afghanistan for nearly four weeks but there is little sign at the front line of preparations for an opposition advance toward Kabul.
However, further west the opposition said it had seized a Taliban-held area south of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Haji Abdul Qahar Abed, a spokesman for the Northern Alliance, said opposition fighters killed 20 Taliban soldiers and captured 200 in a battle late on Friday in Aq Kubruk district, 43 miles south of Mazar-i-Sharif.
There was no independent confirmation of the report from the area, where fighting has raged since the U.S. began bombing to retaliate for the Taliban's sheltering of Osama bin Laden.
Abed said fighting continued on Saturday as opposition commander Ata Mohammad's fighters tried to advance on the city.
He said 700 Taliban fighters had deserted the Muslim fundamentalist movement and joined the Northern Alliance. However, that report could not be verified.
The capture of Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province, would cut Taliban supply lines to western Afghanistan and the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.
PHOTO CAPTION:
A U.S. Marine Harrier attack plane takes off from the flight deck of the USS Peleliu amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea for a mission over Afghanistan, November 3, 2001. Three Harriers attacked command and control centers in southern Afghanistan and returned safely. Marine pilots flew their first bombing raids over Afghanistan on Saturday, marking the first time Harrier jump jets from the USS Peleliu have taken part in Operation Enduring Freedom. (Nicholas Kamm - Pool/Reuters)