BAKU (Azerbaijan). July 6: Armenian forces looked poised to seize the strategic town of Agdam today and deal a new blow to Azerbaijan's demoralised forces, reports Reuter.

Young men of fighting age, ignoring a stern appeal from Azerbaijan's new Prime Minister, streamed out of Agdam on Monday, joining a Hood of refugees taking farmyard animals and paltry belongings with them.

The fall of the town, inside Azeri territory Just east of the disputed enclave of Nagorny-Karabakh, seemed only a matter of time.

Have a good look round. (The Armenians will be here in *two days time," said soldier Shah mar Alisher, one of the reinforcements drafted in to shore up defences.

They are all fleeing. They are all afraid to fight," he said of his comrades-in-arms as

shells crashed down on the town. Suret Ouselnov, a mutinous army commander who drove elected President Abulfaz Elchfbey from power in June and assumed the post of Prime Minister last week, has told all able-bodied men to report for military duty or face punishment.

One Azeri news agency, Assa-lrada, reported late on Monday that Guseinov himself had flown to the front near Agdam, but there was no official confirmation. Guseinov exploited popular discontent with a scries of military defeats under Elchibey In his campaign to oust the nationalist president. Now he In turn must struggle to reverse the tide of defeats.

Armenian forces have firmly Joined the upper hand In a Ive-year undeclared war in which several thousand people have been killed.