The Afghan opposition alliance said yesterday its forces had taken a key town and a nearby airbase in a major rout of the Taliban militia north of the capital Kabul, which was also hit by a deadly air raid. A Taliban spokesman confirmed the loss of Charikar, 40 miles from Kabul, on Saturday night, but had no word on the opposition report that its forces had also taken Bagram airbase yesterday morning.
While fighting raged north of Kabul, a solitary opposition jet bombed a suburb of the capital at mid-day yesterday, killing at least seven people and wounding 12, residents at the scene said.
An official of the government ousted by the Taliban from Kabul last September said: "We closed the road and the Taliban could not withdraw any of their vehicles or equipment." He said 500 Taliban fighters had been killed. Journalists who tried to reach the area on Sunday morning were turned back by Taliban fighters.
Charikar fell to the Taliban in January, but has been under pressure from opposition forces for more than a month since they took the town of Jabal os-Siraj 45 miles north of Kabul.
Charikar controls access to the Ghorband valley, where the Taliban are fighting forces of the Hezb-e-Wahdat faction, a mainly Shia Muslim party in the opposition alliance.
Bagram airbase has long been Kabul's main military airfield, but it has been out of action for 10 months because it was too close to the front line.