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Taliban Repulse Opposition Offensive
Thursday, November 01, 2001
(1:45 PM ET)
By Sayed Salahuddin & Zeeshan Haider
Reuters

Taliban soldiers sit on an old tank in the center of Kandahar November 1, 2001. Afghanistan's Taliban militia said they repulsed the first joint air and ground attack by U.S. and opposition forces in the north but lost a hydropower plant to U.S. bombing in the south. A Taliban Information Ministry official said the Northern Alliance opposition launched three attacks with U.S. air cover but were repulsed.
Photo Credit: Reuters.

"Muslims in Afghanistan are being subjected to killing and the Pakistani government is standing beneath the Christian banner."

KABUL/ISLAMABAD -- Reuters
Afghanistan's Taliban said on Thursday they repulsed the first joint air and ground attack by U.S. and opposition forces in the north but lost a hydroelectric power plant to U.S. bombing in the south.

The air raids blacked out Afghanistan's second city, Kandahar, the power base of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

In Islamabad, the Taliban ambassador said his government had arrested several U.S. citizens. Washington denied any Americans were detained.

A Taliban Information Ministry official in Kabul said the militia repelled a three-pronged Northern Alliance opposition offensive, the first with U.S. air cover, around Dara-i-Suf, south of the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif would cut Taliban supply routes to western Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

"The opposition staged three massive offensives on Bazari Baluch around Dara-i-Suf in coordination with U.S. bombing," Taliban Information Ministry official Qari Fazil Rabi told Reuters. "They achieved nothing and there is no change in our positions," he said.
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2001 © Reuters.

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