Afghan front lines erupted into full-scale battle zones yesterday with the ruling Taliban scoring quick victories, forcing opposition troops and their commander, Ahmad Shah Masood, into a retreat.
Opposition and independent sources said the Taliban had made substantial gains in pushing back Kabul's northern front lines, with the heaviest fighting centred on Bagram airbase, 50 km north of the capital.
"We are no longer on the old road. Our forces have retreated," an opposition spokesman, Abdullah, conceded.
Kabul's two front lines were positioned on the old and new roads about 25 km north of the city. They had remained unchanged for three years until the Taliban launched its summer offensive on Wednesday.
Abdullah said Masood's troops had withdrawn from the old road to defend Charikar, a provincial city neighbouring Bagram airbase.
Kabul's front lines effectively have been redrawn 50 km north of the city.
The ruling Taliban earlier stunned the opposition by capturing Bagram airbase with a fresh assault along the new road.
It ended a 24-hour lull in the fighting which enabled both sides to clean out the dead and wounded.
"Our forces recaptured Bagram. We launched a counter strike from the north and from villages around Bagram. Some Taliban tanks, about 30, moved out from Bagram. Now they are in a semisiege situation," Abdullah said, after earlier conceding the loss of the airbase.
A clear picture about the latest military situation was not available and there was no immediate confirmation from independent sources of the opposition claim.
The Taliban has not commented since launching its offensive against Masood last Wednesday. He is the last rival who stands between total Taliban control of Afghanistan, following five years of civil war.
The Islamic militia controls 80 per cent of the country but Masood holds the north-east provinces and has heavily fortified his forces in the Panjsher Valley, which relies on Bagram to the south for supplies and arms.
Across the Afghan capital residents complained bitterly.
The artillery fire and aerial bombardments were much heavier and louder than recent experiences, with jets screaming low overhead and shells exploding perilously close to residential areas on Kabul's outskirts.
"In 1996 it was worse, with civil war being fought in Kabul, but still last night was different, very loud, very hot fighting, particularly around dawn," a local man, Mohammad Yar, said.
However, independent sources said the Taliban's ability to secure Kabul had improved vastly by forcing the opposition into retreat and knocking out rocket-launching positions held by Masood along the way.
No rockets landed on Kabul yesterday and the militia's ageing fleet of MiGs flew out of Kabul airport unimpeded for the first time in recent memory.
At least 75 rockets have exploded in or around the airport in the last three months alone. Thirty-one were fired from Masood's positions last week.
"Masood can still strike Kabul from the Panjsher valley with longer-range rockets but for the moment his routine means of hitting the Taliban is over," one western observer said. "The Taliban have had a good day."
Updated casualty figures were unavailable for the fifth day of the offensive, but independent sources said the number of dead and wounded from the first four days, for both sides, could exceed 1,000.
"The militia's biggest problems are landmines. Masood has laid them out in a very clever way. There are paths through the fields but at the end you'll find machine gunners," the western observer said.
Independent sources with close links to the Taliban said the militia also had launched separate strikes from Ghorband aimed at encircling Charikar and Jabul Saraj to the north from their western flanks.
However, Abdullah dismissed the reports, accusing Afghan and Pakistani circles of deliberately spreading misinformation.