ISLAMABAD - Northern Afghanistan's ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum ended on Saturday a Taliban ban on women's schools and television in areas he captured from the hardline Islamic movement.

"Now women can continue their education," he told the BBC, one day after his forces took the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the first major prize for his opposition alliance since the start of US air strikes on the Taliban on October 7.

The BBC quoted the general as saying he wanted to open schools and other educational institutions for both men and women and there would no longer be "the situation that prevailed under the Taliban", which captured the region in 1998.

He said he planned to resume radio and television broadcasts.

The Taliban, under their austere interpretation of Islam, barred women from schools and colleges, from office work and from leaving their homes without wearing the head-to-toe burqa veil.

It also banned television and music over the state radio. - Nampa-Reuters