Atop the arid Khairkhana Pass north of the shattered capital, Taliban soldiers dug in Monday and prepared for battle while a fresh wave of refugees fled the fighting further north.
The opposition offensive to dislodge the Taliban religious army from the capital, Kabul, appeared to have stalled eight miles north of the capital, near the village of Shakardara."All night there was fighting," a small, stooped woman from Shakardara, who was wrapped in a black chador and gave her name only as Safurrah, said Monday. "I left everything behind. All I have is my children and what we could carry."
A truckload of Taliban soldiers sped past, and Safurrah quickly hid her face and turned away toward Kabul.
In recent days, the Taliban-controlled capital has been relatively calm, except for the occasional roar of anti-aircraft fire and the distant thud of incoming rockets. The Taliban controls two-thirds of Afghanistan and rules it according to a rigid interpretation of Islam that banishes women from the workplace and schools and forces men into mosques to pray.
North of Kabul, however, the Taliban religious army has been under siege for more than a week by opposition forces led by Afghanistan's former military chief, Ahmed Shah Masood. Fighting was raging on several fronts - in Shakardara, near Maidan Shahr about 20 miles southwest of Kabul and east of the capital in the Tagab Valley.
There is no sign the Taliban is ready to comply with the opposition demand to vacate the capital. Rather, front-line soldiers say they are ready to fight on.