Air Assaults Kill Four Civilians In Afghanistan

The Taliban religious army sent in helicopter gunships Thursday to battle opposition soldiers, who responded with a blistering rocket assault. Four civilians were killed in the fighting.

The battle took place barely nine miles north of the beleaguered capital, Kabul, where the sides have been locked in a stalemate for the past week. Before that, the opposition had made spectacular gains, moving quickly through Taliban defenses north of Kabul.

Four civilians were killed and three were wounded when opposition jets bombed hilltop Taliban positions and the bombs fell on a nearby village, said a Taliban soldier who gave his name only as Tasatullah.

He said Taliban forces had pushed the opposition out of Mir Bacha Kot, a village north of the city. It was impossible to independently confirm the claim.

Opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood predicted Wednesday that the Taliban would lose its grip on Kabul within a week. But the Taliban appeared firmly in control.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and Pakistan continued their attempts to bring the warring factions to the negotiating table.

Opposition forces, which control the northern third of the country, want the Taliban to leave Kabul and allow a neutral force to take control.

The Taliban, who rule the capital and the southern two-thirds of the country, have refused, demanding the opposition hand over prisoners of war and embrace the Taliban’s rigid form of Islamic rule.