Islamist Taliban forces were yesterday reported to have advanced towards the strategic town of Hairaton in northern Afghanistan, near the border with Uzbekistan, prompting alarm among neighbouring Central Asian states.
Tajikistan, supported by Russian troops, began reinforcing its border to prevent the fighting spilling over from northern Afghanistan. The Tajik government has been put on alert while Tajik and Russian troops are reportedly taking "urgent measures".
Russia has retained 25,000 troops on station in Tajikistan, permanently guarding the border. Their regular patrols have been strengthened, the border guard chief, Mr Nikolai Reznichenko, told the Interfax news agency yesterday.
In some areas the Taliban forces have advanced to within 20 to 40 kms (12 to 25 miles) from the Tajik border, the Tajik deputy Prime Minister, Mr Abdurakhmon Azimov, revealed yesterday. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakstan (which border Afghanistan) as well as nearby Kyrgyzstan, have secular governments wary of the fundamentalist Taliban. They have been sympathetic to the now-weakened opposition in the north of Afghanistan.
Russia also fears the entrenchment of a radical Islamic state in Afghanistan which could bring an influx of refugees and arms into the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. It has belatedly begun funding its former Afghan enemies in the hope of defeating the fundamentalist advance.
The Taliban's rapidly developing offensive, which began with the defection of opposition warlords, has abruptly ended the stalemate in Afghanistan's protracted civil war. Two years after capturing the country's devastated capital, Kabul, Taliban militia were yesterday consolidating their hold over the headquarters of the opposition alliance in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Following a massed assault on Saturday and two days of close-quarter combat in the streets, independent sources reported yesterday, Taliban forces were in control of the whole city. Eyewitnesses reported seeing bodies lying in the roads, but said the city was quiet.
Final confirmation of the city's fall came from the opposition, which admitted early yesterday that Taliban troops were in full control. Even so an opposition spokesman vowed that their troops "would regroup and counterattack".
The forces of the opposition Shia party, Hezb-i-Wahdat, are among the strongest in the area and are reported to be around the south of the city. But so far there has no reliable information on whether they are preparing to try to recapture Mazar i-Sharif.
The Taliban's military victories in the north are also causing mounting concern in neighbouring Islamic countries. Iran, which is widely believed to provide political and military support to the opposition - in particular the Shia parties - yesterday with United Nations assistance evacuated nine diplomats who had been based in the opposition stronghold of Bamian, in central Afghanistan, in a move which it described as "precautionary".
This follows the disappearance of 11 other Iranian diplomats from Mazar-iSharif on Saturday. Tehran has accused the Taliban of taking them prisoner and called for their immediate release. The Taliban has denied this and their whereabouts are still unknown - although according to one unconfirmed report, they have been taken to the Taliban's headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar.
Taliban troops have pressed forward their advantage, heading north into the remaining opposition territory. Yesterday a Taliban official claimed they had nearly reached Hairaton, close to Uzbekistan. Already it is estimated that this devastating offensive, which began in July, has extended the Taliban's control to at least three-quarters of the country. The opposition has been left with just a handful of provinces in the north-eastern and central regions, controlled by the different parties of the alliance, which will be isolated and vulnerable to further attack. Even the Panjshir valley, controlled by the well-known opposition commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, and believed to be almost impregnable, could be blockaded if the Taliban's advance continues.
But at present it is not clear what the Taliban strategy will be - whether they will push on as far as possible, or slow down the offensive and consolidate before finding themselves overstretched.