AFGHANISTAN: TALIBAN MILITIA CLAIM TO HAVE ENTERED MAZAR-E-SHARIF

Описание: (8 Aug 1998) English/Nat

Afghanistan's Taliban militia on Saturday claimed to have entered Mazar-e-Sharif following an onslaught of rockets and bombs.

The northern city is the last major prize in the hard-line Islamic army's four-year war against a fractious northern alliance.

A spokesman for the northern alliance who spoke to Associated Press Television in Paris expressed fears of widespread violence and killings following the takeover.

But he insisted the opposition would drive out their enemies within days.

Taliban soldiers entering Mazar-e-Sharif in May 1997.

The Islamic militia held the opposition stronghold briefly before the people of the city rose up against their captors in a wave of bloody street fighting that claimed hundreds of lives.

Spokesmen for the Taliban and their enemies confirmed on Saturday that the Taliban has again entered Mazar-e-Sharif, but say there is still fighting going on for parts of the city.

The fall of Mazar-e-Sharif would be a major blow to an opposition pushed to a dwindling corner of northern Afghanistan, and would give the Taliban control of virtually all of the country.

Taliban soldiers destroyed a poster of Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum after they drove his forces out of Mazar-e-Sharif last year.

Again he has been forced to flee as his troops and other opposition forces reportedly fled south.

There are no details of casualty figures or the number of prisoners taken in the latest fighting.

Foreign aid workers evacuated the city this week as the situation deteriorated.

Abdullah, a spokesman for the anti-Taliban alliance who like many Afghans uses only one name, says he expects further violence.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Unfortunately there has been a dramatic escalation in the fighting in northern Afghanistan since the Taliban has started their big offensive. First Faryab and later on they moved towards Jozjan and they seem to be threatening Mazar-e-Sharif in the past days."
SUPER CAPTION: Abdullah, Spokesman for Anti Taliban Alliance

It is believed as many as 2-thousand Taliban prisoners of war were massacred after the bulk of the militia's troops fled the city in disgrace last year.

There have been reports of bloody reprisals by the Taliban troops as subsequent opposition strongholds in the north have fallen.

Abdullah says the people of Mazar-e-Sharif fear the worst if the Taliban again take the city.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"They have the right to fear about it, because when they (the Taliban) took Mainmana, when they took Faryab, they burned villages, they forces people to evacuate the area, they took hundreds and hundreds of the families as hostages."
SUPER CAPTION: Abdullah, Spokesman for Anti Taliban Alliance

The spokesman says there has been little international attention to the fact that thousands have died bloody deaths in the Afghan conflict over the past year.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I have been watching the television and the news on Kosovo and what's happening there but I think that from a humanitarian point of view, the situation in northwestern part of Afghanistan is much worse than what is going on over there. Unfortunately there hasn't been any media coverage of the situation."
SUPER CAPTION: Abdullah, Spokesman for Anti Taliban Alliance

Analysts say the key to an opposition comeback is the condition of the shaky northern alliance.

Rashid Dostum, seen here inspecting his troops in 1996, is believed to have fled the city.

He is aligned with this man, Ahmed Shah Massood, who controls an area north of the Afghan capital Kabul.



SOUNDBITE: (English)





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