• Taliban claim control of key border crossing with Pakistan 

• UK says may work with Taliban if they join Afghan govt

• Russia tells Kabul to negotiate with Taliban

Days after the Taliban captured a remote district in Afghanistan's north, they issued their first orders in the form of a letter to the local imam. 

"It said women can't go to the bazaar without a male companion, and men should not shave their beards," said Sefatullah, 25, a resident of Kalafgan district.

The Taliban are making huge advances across the country as they capitalise on the final withdrawal of foreign troops -- capturing districts, seizing key border crossings, and encircling provincial capitals.

Yesterday, the Taliban said they had captured the strategic border crossing of Spin Boldak on the frontier with Pakistan.

The border crossing is one of the most strategically valuable for the Taliban. Kabul claimed the crossing remained under its control.

It provides direct access to Pakistan's Balochistan province -- where the insurgents' top leadership has been based for decades -- along with an unknown number of reserve fighters who regularly enter Afghanistan to help bolster their ranks.

The crossing also gives the Taliban the opportunity to access Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi and its sprawling port on the Arabian Sea, which is considered a linchpin for Afghanistan's billion-dollar heroin trade that has provided a crucial source of revenue for the Taliban's war chest over the years.

In some areas they are again introducing the harsh interpretation of Islamic rule that earned them notoriety until being overthrown by the US-led invasion that followed the September 11 attacks.

Last month they took Shir Khan Bandar, a northern customs post that connected the country to Tajikistan over a US-funded bridge that spanned the Panj river.

"After Shir Khan Bandar fell, the Taliban ordered women not to step out of their homes," said Sajeda, who told AFP she worked in a local factory at the time.

"There were many women and young girls doing embroidery, tailoring and shoe-making... The Taliban's order has now terrified us," she told AFP by phone.

Afghanistan is deeply conservative and some rural pockets of the country adhere to similar rules even without Taliban oversight -- but the insurgents have tried to impose these edicts even in more modern centres. 

A statement purporting to come from the Taliban circulated on social media this week ordered villagers to marry off their daughters and widows to the movement's foot soldiers.

Taliban said they didn't issue such notice. But people in areas insist there is truth to the social media buzz. They also said Taliban have ordered all girls above sixth grades to stop going to schools.

In another sign Western governments were rapidly reassessing their Afghanistan policies,

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the United Kingdom was prepared to work with the Taliban if it enters into a power-sharing government.

"Whatever the government of the day is, provided it adheres to certain international norms, the UK Government will engage with it," he told the Daily Telegraph.

Meanwhile, Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin's special representative on Afghanistan, yesterday accused the Afghan government of hypocrisy and said it needed to start proper negotiations with the Taliban about the country's future before it was too late.