JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go to Afghanistan for more on the new threat by the Taliban supreme leader and the latest on the status of the eastern city of Jalalabad. CNN's Matthew Chance has a report from the Afghan capital of Kabul.</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Perhaps another step in the disintegration of Taliban rule across Afghanistan that we have been witnessing during the course of the week, according to Northern Alliance officials of the foreign ministry and also of the defense ministry now, that they are reporting that they have control over the eastern city of Jalalabad. We are not able to independently confirm those reports at this stage. We are working on that as we speak. If it is true, though, it does deliver another powerful blow to the Taliban militia which, as I mentioned, has been retreating across the country. Of course, last week, we saw the fall of the strategic northern city of Mazar in north, then Herat in the west, and just a few days ago the Afghan capital itself. Now Jalalabad further diminishes, if it is true, further diminishes the amount of territory under the control of the Taliban militia. Northern alliance officials saying that more than 80 percent of the country is now under their control. Now defiant words, also in spite of these big military setbacks from the Taliban leader Mullah Omar in an interview with the BBC World Service Radio Pashtun section, Mullah Omar speaking through a Taliban intermediary, appeared to warn of a strategy for what he called the destruction of America. He didn't specify, though, what actions would be taken. Those threats, though, coming as efforts, diplomatic efforts, intensify in western capitals of the United Nations, and of course here in the region to find an ethically broad-based political agreement that would bring all the diverse ethnic groups here in Afghanistan together in a power sharing government. Those efforts continuing. Northern Alliance officials in control in Kabul saying they are fully committed still to such an agreement. Matthew Chance, CNN, Kabul.
Northern Alliance Claims Control of Jalalabad