Daily Telegraph:
US is just playing around, says Northern Alliance
By Marcus Warren in Bagram, 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.
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.
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