PARIS - The lightning capture of Kabul has confounded the doom-mongers and vindicated the US-led bombing campaign of the last five weeks, analysts said on Tuesday, but it is still only a first step towards victory.

Several priorities beckon: the formation of a broad government to fill the political vacuum left by the Taliban's sudden departure; the capture of the Pashtun-dominated southern half of the country; the supply of humanitarian aid to tempt back refugees.

And that is without mentioning the original purpose of the assault on Afghanistan: the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden and his henchmen.

For now, their whereabouts remain unknown.

"The capture of Kabul came too early for the US, but it's still very good news. After all the doubts about the effectiveness of the bombing, it represents major progress," said Pascal Boniface, director of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris.

For Guillaume Parmentier of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), "The Alliance may not have followed its advice, but the US emerges as the winner. (President George W) Bush can tell his public - look, inside a month I forced the Taliban out of Kabul."

"Washington had clearly signalled its preference for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance to remain outside of Kabul until a coalition government had been organised, and its inability to check the advance indicated its lack of real influence over events on the ground, experts said."

"We must be careful not to cry victory too soon. The Americans have clearly no way of imposing their will on the Afghans. All they can do is try to encourage them," Boniface said.

But according to western diplomats, the manner of Kabul's collapse - without the US's green light - represented an important opening for the United Nations, whose representative Lakhdar Brahimi has been leading efforts to form a new government.

"Now is the time for the diplomats to move into top gear. From now on the United Nations has got to be able to take on a bigger role," said a foreign ministry official in Paris.

Countries such as France and Britain, which have a more sophisticated knowledge of the region than the US, could also play a more important part as the US-led operation moves into a post-military phase, the experts said.

Meanwhile the ease with which the Northern Alliance swept across northern Afghanistan was attributed by many analysts to a collapse of Taliban morale largely brought about by the pressure of constant US bombardments.

Only a week ago the effectiveness as well as the ethics of the bombing campaign were being widely criticised in the western press, and there were signs of growing impatience at the apparent lack of progress.

But writing in Britain's Daily Telegraph, Pakistan-based Afghan specialist Ahmed Rashid said the Taliban "underestimated the withering bombardment carried out by American aircraft."

"(It) first decimated their front lines, then prevented them from assembling at departure points for retreat, and finally harassed them relentlessly as they fled pell-mell."

"However Rashid, author of a recent book 'Taliban', warned that there was no guarantee the Alliance's successes in the north of the country could be repeated easily in the south, which is dominated by the Taliban's own Pashtun people."

"The Taliban have many strengths to exploit. They have already dispersed their forces in southern Afghanistan in small towns and villages to avoid the bombing. The south is alien to the alliance and the domino effect of falling cities that took place in the north may not last long," he wrote. - Nampa-AFP