Troops of the opposition Northern Alliance were last night sweeping south, northeast, and west of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, to consolidate and extend the hold they now have over most of northern Afghanistan.
Last night one of the Alliance's component forces even claimed to be entering the city of Bamiyan, west of Kabul, whose seizure could cut off the capital from Kandahar in the south, the spiritual home of the Taliban.
The opposition said its fortunes in Bamiyan were bolstered after a Taliban commander switched sides after seeing the battlefield momentum swing against him. The defection of the commander, Isamuddin, cut off the road for Taliban troops retreating from Mazar-e-Sharif to Kabul and isolated those still in the north, an opposition spokesman said.
Earlier the city of Taloqan, capital of the Takhar province east of Mazar-e-Sharif, fell after fierce fighting. Opposition troops took Qala-i-Nau, the provincial capital of Badghis, and were now pressing on Herat, on the Iranian border, which the Alliance claims it can take within days.
In the northeast, they are now threatening the only province still holding out - Kunduz, bordering Tajikistan.
The Taliban have confirmed the loss of five northern provinces after what they termed a "strategic withdrawal" aimed at avoiding casualties and consolidating their forces.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, there were reports that liberation has been marked by music blaring in the streets, men queuing at barbers to have their beards trimmed, and women appearing in public without their burkas (veils).
Although the US Administration is being ultra-cautions in confirming Alliance claims, and has warned of the danger of counter-attacks, the suddenly brighter prospects have prompted President Bush on Saturday to warn the Alliance against seizing the capital ahead of political agreement on the shape of a post-Taliban government. "We will encourage our friends to head south . . . but not into the city of Kabul itself," Mr Bush said at a news conference in New York.
Today the UN's special representative, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, is due to report to the Security Council on his progress in putting such a coalition together. He attended a meeting on Saturday at the UN in New York at which Russia, the US and Afghanistan's neighbours called on the Northern Alliance to respect human rights in newly captured territory.
The Foreign Minister of the Alliance, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, last night reiterated his group's commitment to consultation with allies before it moves on Kabul.
But he boasted that the Alliance has the Taliban on the run. "The importance of this big defeat is not just that they lost large areas, but they also lost their main fighting force," he told reporters in Jabul Seraj, north of Kabul.
He estimated the Taliban had 15,000 troops, mostly foreigners and fighters from southern Afghanistan, in the north before the resistance forces began their push five days ago. "Hundreds" of militia troops, mainly Pakistanis, were killed in Mazar-e-Sharif before the Taliban abandoned the city. Elsewhere, Taliban soldiers fled to the mountains, he said.
Gen Alim Khan, a senior opposition commander responsible for an area near Kabul, confirmed the offensive towards the capital had been delayed.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported yesterday that Pakistan's Gen Pervez Musharraf ordered an emergency redeployment of the country's nuclear arsenal to secret new locations and reorganised military supervision of the arsenal to protect the weapons from theft or attack.
He dismissed fears he might find it hard to cling to power in the face of domestic opposition to the war in Afghanistan.
