Posted on 11/13/2001 3:38:15 PM PST by blam
Taleban fight to the last at River of Blood
FROM IAN COBAIN IN BANGI, NORTH AFGHANISTAN
THOUSANDS of Taleban troops were mounting a desperate last stand in the north of Afghanistan last night after being completely surrounded during five days of sweeping advances by the Northern Alliance.
After Kabul’s defences were deserted by the fundamentalist militia, up to 9,000 of their comrades were digging in for a final battle in the city of Kunduz and a handful of surrounding villages.
Large numbers of Chechens, Pakistanis and Arabs were said to be among the Taleban fighters who have been trapped in Kunduz after being driven out of Mazar-i Sharif to the west and routed after a two-day battle at Kalakata Ridge to the east.
Northern Alliance units joined forces to encircle their enemy from the south on Sunday. To the north lies the border with Tajikistan, which is patrolled by Russian troops.
In the Shia Muslim areas of central Afghanistan, there were reports of Taleban troops rounding up and murdering large numbers of young men and razing entire neighbourhoods before they withdrew.
Fighting was already raging to the west of the Kunduz last night, with savage hand-to-hand combat in the steep gorges of the River Taloqan — an Uzbek word meaning River of Blood — and at least one cavalry charge by mounted Alliance fighters, firing their Kalashnikovs as they galloped across a high plateau.
A small number of suicidal Chechens killed several Northern Alliance soldiers by strapping explosives around their chests, emerging from their foxholes with their hands raised as if to surrender and then blowing up their captors and themselves.
Other Taleban troops were detonating bridges as they retreated slowly towards Kunduz and the city’s airfield. Among the river crossings destroyed was the bridge at the village of Bangi, 25 miles west of the city of Taloqan, the former headquarters of the Northern Alliance, recaptured from the Islamic militia on Sunday night.
Amid chaotic attacks and counter-attacks, more than 100 Alliance troops, many of them young reinforcements sent into battle for the first time, were captured by the Taleban yesterday and marched back towards Kunduz. There was no immediate word on their fate.
For much of the day, a storm of dust and smoke billowed for hundreds of feet above the town of Khanabad in the mountains above Kunduz after the Alliance mounted a sustained tank and artillery barrage against Taleban positions, while surrounding ravines and hillsides echoed to machine-gun and automatic rifle fire. There was no end to the bitter fighting after nightfall.
There was no sign of any American air support for the Alliance during the day’s fighting, although a solitary B52 bomber could be seen circling over the battleground shortly before dusk.
Up to 5,000 fresh Alliance reinforcements were heading for the battle late last night after marching all day across the mountains of the neighbouring province of Takhar. Three squadrons of Soviet-era T55 and T72 tanks were also being marshalled in the area and several rocket-launchers, mounted on the backs of ancient lorries, could be seen being driven to the front line.
Refugees who managed to slip across the front to escape the fighting told Northern Alliance commanders in Taloqan that infighting had erupted between rival Taleban leaders and between the different nationalities within the militia’s ranks. They said that a number of the militiamen had been killed and wounded during gunfights inside Kunduz.
The Alliance appears to have captured more than 50 per cent of the country during the first 120 hours of its offensive. There was confirmation yesterday that fighters loyal to Ismail Khan, a veteran Mujahidin leader, had seized the western city of Herat.
The Taleban were also driven out of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan after a battle that lasted just two hours. Bamiyan is where the Taleban leadership provoked international uproar last March by destroying two huge 1,700-year-old statues of Buddha.
By last night, the Taleban had destroyed many of the homes and shops in the town as well, and there were persistent reports that large numbers of young men — possibly hundreds — had been shot over the past two days.
Bamiyan is in the largely Shia Muslim Hazarajat region, one of the poorest and least-developed corners of Afghanistan. It is also one of the areas that has suffered most under the rule of the Sunni Muslim Taleban.
Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance Foreign Minister, predicted yesterday that Taleban troops will have nowhere to hide once Kunduz is captured, an outcome that appeared to be inevitable. He said that they would have to choose between making a dash through hostile territory to the south-west, where they could be picked off by American warplanes, or trying to cross the Hindu Kush, the mountain range to the south-east, which is almost impassable in winter.
There were signs, however, that the Taleban leadership could be preparing for a prolonged guerrilla war against both the Alliance and any international peace-keeping force drafted into the country. Taleban fighters were said to be mounting small-scale raids against the forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum, the warlord who captured Mazar-i Sharif on Friday. Several hundred Taleban who escaped the city are thought to have established bases in the Shodean mountains south of the city.
In an impassioned radio broadcast, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taleban leader, last night urged his followers to regroup and fight on. “Obey your commanders,” he told them, “and never, never desert.”
The Northern Alliance was accused yesterday of massacring young Taleban soldiers in Mazar-i Sharif. The United Nations said that more than 100 Taleban hiding in the city were killed by Alliance troops after its capture. Stephanie Bunker, a UN spokesman, said: “There were more than a hundred people, relatively young people, who were killed by the Northern Alliance troops on Saturday.” Their nationalities were not known.
The press should understand this is why these terrorist murderers must, themselves, be killed.
A small number of suicidal Chechens killed several Northern Alliance soldiers by strapping explosives around their chests, emerging from their foxholes with their hands raised as if to surrender and then blowing up their captors and themselves.
A note of caution to any US soldiers on the ground. Moral: take no prisoners.
Consistently antiAmerican.
This sounds awfully like the Iraqi call for the "Mother of all Battles"
And, of course, we all remember how THAT turned out.
I don't expect we'll ever see the Afghan 'highway of death.'
Somethin', isn't it? Horses still being used to wage war, here in our modern 21st century-esentially the same tactics man has been employing for thousands of years, only this time with automatic weapons.
Poor horses. The Poles used horses in WW2. I've seen film of dead and bloated horses all over the roads in Poland when the Nazis invaded.
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