Northern Alliance has expanded their Saturday victories further beyond Mazar-i-Sharif. Two more provinces are reportedly now being taken:

1] Sar-i-Pol province to the south, already taken Saturday morning,

2] and Jowzjan province to the west, along the road to Herat.

http://www.afghanradio.com/news/2001/nov...

Afghan opposition advances after seizing key city

By Sayed Salahuddin and Rosalind Russell
KABUL/JABAL-US-SARAJ (Reuters) - Afghan opposition troops patrolled the streets of northern Mazar-i-Sharif on Saturday, just hours after routing fighters of the ruling Taliban militia in the first major victory of the U.S.-led campaign.

Forces of ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum entered the city late on Friday and by first light were patrolling the streets, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.

Dostum said the battle for the city lasted just an hour and a half before the Taliban retreated, leaving eight dead Northern Alliance troops and 90 of their own men. northern Alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem later said some 250 Taliban fighters had been killed and 500 taken prisoner.

Northern Alliance Interior Minister Yunis Qanuni told Reuters the local population, mainly ethnic Uzbeks who have little love for the mostly Pashtun Taliban, aided the entry of the rebel forces who now plan to advance south on a highway to Kabul.

"The people of Mazar-i-Sharif helped us. They captured some of the Pakistani and Arab soldiers and handed them over to us," Qanuni said, referring to the foreign fighters in the Taliban militia who are believed to number several thousand in the north. "The situation in the city is now quiet and all parts are under our control," he said.

The city was for more than a decade the powerbase of General Dostum before it was taken by the Taliban three years ago. Civilians were hacked to death at random in that 1998 battle as the Taliban took revenge for their bloodiest defeat when they attempted to capture the city the previous year.

the Taliban were fleeing swiftly, Qanuni said. "They are running away. They have lost their morale and they are not fighting back," he said. That report could not be independently confirmed.

Qanuni said his forces would now try to push southeast to gain control of the road to Kabul. Taliban forces were reinforcing the town of Pul-i-Khumri on the main road.

The Northern Alliance, also known as the United Front, said it had taken Sar-i-Pol province to the south of Mazar-i-Sharif early in the morning. The town of Hairatan, on the Amu Darya river that marks Afghanistan's northern border, had fallen.

"The border is still closed but we hope to open it shortly," Qanuni said. Hairatan lies just across the river from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. Taliban fighters appeared to be retreating east toward the neighbouring province of Kunduz or heading for Kabul.

Others were moving west through Jowzjan province, trying to make a new stand near the town of Shiberghan -- Dostum's birthplace -- and following the main road to the strategic southwestern city of Herat, Afghan Islamic Press said.