LocalDirectory

subsequent execution of innocents, destruction of homes and burning of a market.”

Sporadic clashes are continuing, O’Donnell said.

Afghan authorities insist the city will not fall to the Taliban and that Afghan forces are in control of key government positions and other institutions.

“The Taliban have failed in reaching their goal,” said Col. Fared Mashal, the provincial police chief.

Gen. Tareq Shah Bahrami, Afghanistan’s defense minister, said about 100 Afghan police and army and 20 civilians have been killed in Ghazni, the first o cial casualty toll released by the government since the Taliban launched the massive assault.

At a news conference in Kabul, Bahrami said the casualty figures are not definite and that the numbers might change. Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak said nearly 70 police were killed.

About 1,000 additional troops were sent to Ghazni, Bahrami said. He added that 194 insurgents, including 12 Taliban leaders, were killed — with fighters from Pakistan, southern Russia’s region of Chechnya and various Arab countries among the dead.

The Taliban destroyed a telecommunications tower on Ghazni’s outskirts, cutting off landline and cellphone links to the city, where shops are closed. The fighting severely damaged Ghazni’s historic neighborhoods and cultural treasures, Bahrami said, adding that he believes the next 24 hours would turn the tide in the battle.

Mustafa’s wife, Razia, said they had no food, water or and electricity for four days.

“There were so many dead bodies under the bridges, at the side of roads and under the destroyed houses,” she said.

Their son and two daughters were wounded by shrapnel from an airstrike on the Taliban near a mosque.

Another witness, Abdul Wasih, 59, said his son was wounded in the leg by a mortar attack Sunday that killed five of his close relatives.

“I went to the hospital, but it was full of dead bodies with a very bad smell,” he said. Bodies wrapped in sheets lay in open wooden co ns in the hospital.

Wasih said that since his son’s wound was not serious, he decided