In the book Swimming with Warlords, which I recently reviewed – TMP link – the author briefly reviews the start of the drive in the north against the Taliban.
The author was a journalist for NBC News in 2001, residing at the compound where General Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by the Taliban, where he found the troops to be dejected.
However, once Dostum showed that the Taliban could be defeated, he says that other Northern Alliance commanders began to plan their advance. One was an Uzbek warlord named Moammar Hassan, who finally took a dramatic pose under fire of the Taliban, and ordered his troops by radio to "start fighting" (pg. 43).
The area is described as the hills of Kalakata. The Taliban have been living here in bunkers for over a year. Hassan's tanks are deployed on a ridge overlooking the village of Chagatai, facing the Kalakata hills.
The author drove to the area, rode on horseback to the lines, then walked to a hill known as Puze Pul-e-Khomri with other journalists.
From a bunker in the rear, the reporters time the mortar rounds, and advance to the tank position where a T-55 dug into the hilltop is firing into the Taliban-controlled valley at dusk. (The Taliban also have tanks here, he says.) The reporters interview the tank crew, when they hear an incoming round. The tank crew dive into the trenches. The reporters aren't fast enough, are knocked down, and one takes some shrapnel in a leg. (He is evacuated and makes full recovery.)
Interestingly, no mention is made in this account of any US assistance in the fighting.
