Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia Wednesday began pounding opposition positions with heavy artillery ahead of a counter-attack to retake a western district lost this week, resistance sources said.
Spokesman Mohammad Ashraf Nadeem said the counter-attack was expected any hour against resistance forces which captured Ghalmin district in western Ghor province on Monday, dealing a second blow to the militia in less than a week.
"The Taliban are preparing for another counter attack and we are prepared for a defense," he said from the besieged opposition enclave of Darae Souf, close to the embattled region.
With the onset of winter, fighting in the war-torn country has spread away from the mountainous northeast where the bulk of the opposition's forces are concentrated and where major battles raged throughout the summer.
The opposition's latest victory in Ghor, although not of major strategic significance, dealt a second psychological blow to the militia who lost Yakawlang district in central Bamyan province on Saturday.
Fighting was also reported Wednesday in the northeast near the border with Tajikistan, but another opposition spokesman, Mohammad Sidiq, said there was no major attack by either side in the area.
"It might be some routine clash or exchange of artillery," he said from the main opposition stronghold in the Panjshir valley, north of here.
Nadeem said supporters of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Masood who captured Ghalmin, north of the Ghor provincial center Cheghcheran, have so far held their ground despite heavy counter-attacks on Tuesday.
Taliban jets carried out seven raids over Ghalmin Tuesday in support of a two-pronged infantry attack in which two opposition soldiers were wounded and six militia men killed, the opposition spokesman said.
Ghalmin has changed hands several times since the puritanical Islamic militia swept through the isolated and impoverished region five years back. Taliban officials have not confirmed Ghalmin's loss.
Nadeem said the more important area of Yakawlang, which anti-Taliban Shitte groups Wahdat-i-Islami and Harakat-i-Islami took on Saturday, was quiet Wednesday.
The Taliban official Shariat Weekly reported that three opposition commanders -- Malem Saifuddin, Qomandan Daud and Qomandan Farooq -- joined the militia in Bamyan Tuesday together with an unspecified number of armed men.
It said Wahdat-i-Islami leader Karim Khalili planned to launch a series of operations in the central regions.
The Taliban drove former defense minister Masood and president Burhanuddin Rabbani out of Kabul in 1996 and now control most of the country -- KABUL (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
