FIGHTING on the front lines north of the capital, Kabul, intensified yesterday with the radical Islamic Taliban militia and their opponents exchanging tank, artillery and rocket rounds.
Fighting between the two sides in the remote north western province of Badghis has forced 40,000 to 50,000 Afghans to flee their homes, a UN agency said.
The main front lines are some 20 to 25 km north of Kabul, in a broad valley that runs from Kabul to the foothills of the Hindu Kush. The anti Taliban alliance, comprising forces loyal to the ousted government and those of the northern leader, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, have been trying for almost three weeks to capture a range of low hills that bisects the valley.
Despite numerous attacks by alliance forces, the lines near Kabul have remained largely static.
An alliance jet dropped a single bomb on Kabul's airport early yesterday morning. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
The radical Islamic Taliban militia seized Kabul on September 27th and now control nearly 75 per cent of the country.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said yesterday that fighting in Badghis province has forced 40,000 to 50,000 Afghans to flee their homes.
"More people are arriving in Herat every day, some after walking for several days and nights," the UNHCR said. "A camp set up in Herat last Wednesday is already full."
The UNHCR said it had agreed with the Taliban, who have held the western city of Herat since September, 1995, to let the newly displaced people use another camp that normally houses Afghan refugees returning from neighbouring Iran. That camp, too, was filling up fast, it added.
The Taliban have been locked in see saw battles in Badghjs with the combined forces of Gen Dostum and ousted government commander, Gen Ahmad Shah Masood.
Afghans have constituted the world's biggest refugee population for the past 14 years. About 3.8 million have returned home since 1989, when the Soviet occupation ended, but more than a million remain in Pakistan and 1.4 million in Iran.