The Taliban militia said yesterday it had captured Bamiyan city, the last stronghold of the Iranian-backed opposition faction in central Afghanistan.
The religious militia launched an offensive from the north and captured the city centre after heavy fighting, according to a Taliban official, Shekeib Ahmad. He said by telephone from the Taliban base at Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, that another group of Taliban supporters who had mounted a simultaneous attack from the east had also entered Bamiyan.
Iran's official news agency, IRNA, confirmed that the militia had captured Bamiyan.
The Pakistan-based private Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), reporting the city's fall, said the Sunni Muslim Taliban also secured the release of dozens of prisoners from opposition forces.
Taliban fighters last week seized several districts in Bamiyan province when eight local commanders of the rival Hezb-i-Wahdat faction defected to the Islamic militia.
Bamiyan city, surrounded by mountains, has historical importance as it has two giant Buddha statues in its centre.
A Taliban front-line commander had earlier warned that his Muslim soliders would blow up the statues once they captured the city. However, a Taliban official in Kabul said he hoped the statues would remain intact, though he said it was difficult to "control things" under war conditions.
The fall of Bamiyan is a major setback for the anti-Taliban alliance. The Taliban entry into the rugged mountainous terrain of Afghanistan's central region might not allow the ethnic Hazara community to regroup.
The Iranian Foreign Minister, Mr Kamal Kharazi, said yesterday that a meeting of the National Security Council (INSC) had made "important decisions" on the crisis with the Taliban.
"I am not authorised to say more than what has been said, but it took important decisions in the direction of preserving our interests," he said at a joint press conference with the visiting Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Ismail Cem.
The INSC, the highest political and military decision-making body in Iran, held a meeting late on Saturday to discuss measures to take following the murder of Iranian diplomats and a journalist by the Taliban militia in Afghanistan.