Fresh battle rages near Kabul

The Northern Alliance has already had one attack repulsed

Northern Alliance fighters have launched another assault on Taleban positions some 30 kilometres south of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Defence Ministry officials had talked to the Americans and they had promised that they would bomb... but they didn't.

Northern Alliance commander Sher Alam

The attack - near the village of Maidan Shahr - began soon after dawn with Northern Alliance forces moving into the rocky barren hills around the village.

Rocket launchers, tanks and machine guns are being used against the Taleban forces.

However, a similar attempt to dislodge the them from the ridges on Thursday failed.

The Northern Alliance commander in the area, Sher Alam, complained that he had asked for US air strikes to back up his attack, but none came.

Negotiations

The fighting erupted after protracted negotiations to get the Taleban force to surrender.

The Northern Alliance has tried to buy off the Taleban

The Taleban force is believed to consist mainly of local fighters who know the ground well.

But villagers say there is also a significant contingent of Pakistanis and Arabs, who have nowhere else to go.

A BBC correspondent near the fighting says the Taleban commander, Ghulam Mohammed, is widely despised there and has a particularly brutal reputation.

The alliance had reportedly offered him some $200,000 to defect - but he took the money and stayed in the hills.

It appears that he feared reprisals for acts of brutality when he was in control of the village.

The Northern Alliance has been trying to persuade the Taleban in the area to surrender since the alliance captured Kabul earlier this month.

The Northern Alliance wants to dislodge the Taleban from the area because they can still harass the main road south from the capital, Kabul.