Fighter pilots loyal to a northern warlord bombarded Taliban defenses in the hills north of Kabul Monday, as forces of the anti-Taliban alliance massed at the front line.

The bombing runs outside the capital followed night bombing raids on the Kabul airport on the northwestern edge of the city."Our forces are participating fully, whether on the defense or on the attack," said Gen. Yusuf, a spokesman at warlord Rashid Dostum's headquarters in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. "It's our planes that are bombing."

At the front line roughly 10 miles north of Kabul, Dostum's soldiers were fighting alongside former government troops, led by the ousted military chief Ahmed Shah Massood.

The combined anti-Taliban force arrayed north of Kabul was several thousand strong, reporters there said. Soldiers from a smaller Islamic sect known as Ismaili Muslims also arrived at the front line Monday to link up with fighters loyal to Dostum and Massood, they said.

The Taliban army seized the capital on Sept. 27, ousting the government. Taliban forces have overrun two-thirds of the country in their campaign to impose strict Islamic rule.

The military alliance against the Taliban formed soon after the capital fell, combining the forces of Dostum, Massood, the Ismailis led by Jaffar Nauderi and a small Shiite sect led by Karim Khalili.

Dostum's forces moved multiple-rocket launchers into place Monday north of a key pass that the deposed government has been trying to capture for nearly a week.

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Control of the Khair Khay pass would put the anti-Taliban troops in the hills overlooking Kabul. Taliban soldiers are fiercely guarding the area, repulsing repeated attempts to claim it.

In Kabul, two bombs landed near the airport shortly after midnight. A third - a cluster bomb - hit a runway, forcing airport workers to sweep up the shrapnel before the airport could reopen, they said.

It was the third day of bombing raids on Kabul's airports by Dostum's jets. There have been no reports of any injuries.

The Taliban retaliated Monday with at least three low-flying bombing runs over anti-Taliban positions north of the capital.

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