Armed opposition groups are planning more attacks in central Afghanistan after capturing a key district of Bamyan province from the ruling Taliban militia, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Mohammad Ashraf Nadeem, a spokesman for ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani, said opposition soldiers were consolidating their gains in Yakawlang district which they took on Saturday.
Speaking from the anti-Taliban enclave of Darrae Souf to the north of Bamyan, Nadeem said the opposition was now preparing an offensive against the Shebar-Two airstrip near Yakawlang.
"Although it is quiet now, there are more programs as well," Nadeem told AFP by satellite telephone.
The Taliban Islamic militia initially tried to deny it had lost Yakawlang but has since confirmed its withdrawal.
Nadeem said resistance forces in central Afghanistan had recently regrouped after Karim Khalili and Mohammad Muhaqeq, two local leaders of the main Shiite party of Wahdat-i-Islami, buried past differences.
He said they had launched unsuccessful attacks against Saighan and Kahmard districts in Bamyan, the home of several huge and ancient Buddha statues.
Opposition forces were pushed out of the central highlands in the Taliban's 1998 summer offensive.
The opposition's main commander, Rabbani's former defense minister Ahmad Shah Masood, is battling the Taliban in northeastern Takhar province, with strongholds in neighbouring Badakshan and the Panjshir valley north of kabul.
The puritanical Taliban Islamic militia drove Rabbani and Masood from Kabul in 1996 and now control most of the country -- KABUL (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
