-Caveat Lector-
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/18/war1
18.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/10/18/ixhome.html
US is just playing around, says Northern Alliance
By Marcus Warren in Begrime, northern Afghanistan
(Filed: 18/10/2001)
THE first American strikes against front-line targets north of Kabul left
anti-Taliban commanders distinctly unimpressed yesterday. Some military
chiefs even complained that their enemy's morale was higher now than before
the air campaign began.
Northern Alliance soldiers march through a cemetary en route to positions
on the front line The negligible scale of the allied air raids on the
military outside the Afghanistan capital had convinced the Taliban that
America was "just playing around", one senior commander of the Northern
Alliance forces said, citing reports from spies and "connections" in Kabul.
An unidentified plane was seen banking away over the mountains soon after
two explosions a few miles south of the front line yesterday afternoon in
what appeared to be the first daylight raid in the area.
Three bombs were dropped on Taliban positions six miles from Bagram,
Afghanistan's largest air base, from early evening on Tuesday until dawn
yesterday, the general in charge of the ruined airport confirmed.
All the overnight bombs hit their target and one destroyed a small convoy
of cars near a Taliban post, Gen Babajan said. Before the attack, the cars
had their lights on but afterwards there was only darkness and the vehicles
had been "smashed to bits", he said.
The strikes made good a threat earlier this week by Donald Rumsfeld, the US
defence secretary, that the front line would not "be a very safe place to
be".
Since the bombing began 10 days ago, Taliban fighters have sought shelter
from the raids on Kabul by commuting by car to their positions near the
Northern Alliance forces to the north of the capital. The Taliban's vehicle
lights can easily be seen across the plains.
However, Gen Babajan, who voiced the fears of many commanders of opposition
forces at the weekend when he accused America and Pakistan of a plot to
thwart any Northern Alliance advance on Kabul, was unenthusiastic about the
attacks.
"Do you think three bombs will make much of a difference?" he asked,
sitting in the shade at his command post behind the bombed out airbase
buildings.
To observers on the Shamali plains, America appears to be doing the bare
minimum to keep its allies fighting the Taliban happy but is determined not
to encourage them to move on and to capture Kabul.
There was even speculation that the bombs dropped overnight had been left
over from other sorties and expended in an attack on B-list targets.
One senior Northern Alliance commander expressed the fear that the minimal
intensity of the bombing was strengthening the Taliban's resolve to resist
America.
Jan Akhamat, deputy military chief of Parvan province said: "Before the
bombing, the Taliban were worried about what sort of attacks would happen.
Now the attacks are like this and their morale is better."
He added: "They think the Americans are just playing around. These three
bombs are not enough. In fact they will mobilise the Taliban and make them
stronger."
Confidence in America, never high among anti-Taliban commanders, and faith
in the likelihood of any significant military alliance with Washington, are
evaporating rapidly.
"The United States is doing its own thing for its own benefit here," said
Commander Akhamat, a sentiment shared by most of the anti-Taliban military
leadership as well as many ordinary people.
Washington's close co-operation with Pakistan, long an ally of the
Taliban's extremist regime and hostile to the Northern Alliance, has only
confirmed the suspicions of those fighting the Taliban on the ground that
they are being used as cannon fodder by the West.
================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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