FIGHTING swirled north of Kabul yesterday with forces loyal to the former government military chief, Gen Ahmad Shah Masood, pressing hard to recapture the Afghan capital, while Taliban militia regained ground elsewhere, witnesses said.
Fighting erupted around midday in the small market town of Qara Bagh, which is situated beside the main highway running north from Kabul about 50 km outside the capital.
An hour earlier, reporters who had been told the town was in the hands of Gen Masood's forces were startled to find a white flag fluttering above the market place. The flag is used by the Taliban to mark their territory and to signify their purity.
"We are Taliban and we welcome you," Muhammad Ismail, an elderly, bearded local cleric, said.
"This town is now completely secure under Taliban. There is no fear of attack. Everyone here believes in the Koran. All we want now is peace."
Gen Masood was military chief under the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, which was driven from Kabul by the Taliban.
Gen Masood's troops had retaken the town just two days ago but neglected to garrison it and local residents said the Taliban - slipped into the southern part on Monday and took the rest overnight yesterday, under cover of darkness and without a fight.
Jeeps, trucks and buses filled with Gen Masood's soldiers streamed towards Qara Bagh from Jabal os-Siraj in the early afternoon, eager to reclaim lost ground.
The soldiers stopped reporters trying to re-enter Qara Bagh about 10 km north of the town where the main highway forks north-east towards the military airfield at Bagram - another site of fighting yesterday.
The sound of heavy artillery and what seemed to be aircraft bombs rumbled menacingly over the plains south of Jabal os-Siraj at midday, indicating strong fighting in that vicinity - about 90 km north of Kabul.
Aid workers in the town of Charikar 10 km to the south saw an aircraft circling at about the same time and said anti-aircraft guns around the town let loose a hail of fire but failed to bring it down.
Charikar, held by Gen Masood's forces, was bombed on Monday afternoon by an unknown aircraft, presumably flying in support of Taliban forces. Nine persons were killed and six were wounded, witnesses said.
Elsewhere, Gen Masood's sources said they were closing in on Sarobi on the main highway about 70 km east of Kabul.
Along the road to Bagram at a hamlet called Rabat, the commander of the last non-Taliban checkpoint said he was sickened by the country's recent return to war.
The Taliban government yesterday dismissed an alliance of its adversaries and said its withdrawal from key towns north of the capital did not amount to a defeat of its forces.
The acting information minister, Mr Amir Khan Mutaqi, told a news conference that the Taliban still regarded the two main parties in Monday's alliance, the northern leader, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Gen Masood, as separate.
He said that despite the alliance, Taleban was ready to hold talks with Gen Dostum.