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Opposition Playing Central Role as U.S. Says No Negotiations with Taliban
JABAL SERAJ, Afghanistan, Oct 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghanistan's opposition alliance revealed Wednesday it was playing a key role in U.S. military planning as preparations for an attack against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden intensified, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The Northern Alliance's chief spokesman, Abdullah Abdullah, said he had met unidentified U.S. officials at a secret location in recent days to discuss coordinated military action in Afghanistan.
As the Taliban repeated desperate pleas for talks instead of war, the opposition claimed that as many as 10,000 Taliban troops were ready to switch sides and turn against the militia which has ruled Kabul since 1996.
"I met American officials face to face a few days ago. It was not in Afghanistan. The outcome was good. We discussed every aspect of the current situation and the prospect of cooperation," Abdullah told a press conference in this Afghan town, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kabul.
"In immediate terms it will be a military situation," he said, adding that he was surprised at the level of panic he was seeing within the Taliban's normally fervent ranks even before a shot had been fired in the U.S.-led operation.
Abdullah said the alliance had been in contact with dozens of Taliban commanders as the prospect of massive U.S. attack in retaliation for the September 11th terror strikes in the United States loomed ever larger.
"It will not be exaggerating if I say that with those contacts 10,000 men in different parts of Afghanistan" could desert the Taliban, he said.
"It was surprising for me. They are willing to change sides today or wait until something happens and coordinate efforts with us. We prefer the latter."
Earlier Tuesday, Mohammed Eshaq, Washington representative of the United Front, also known as the Northern Alliance, said the Taliban had left itself vulnerable since the September 11th attacks blamed by NATO, Great Britain and the United States on bin Laden.
"If there is coordination between our forces and the United States, we think that the job of elimination of terrorist camps and removal of the Taliban from power will be very easy,'' Eshaq told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
''The Taliban have concentrated all their forces in two front lines - one about 30 miles north of Kabul, and the other ... south of the Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border,'' he said.
He said the Taliban, which controls most of Afghanistan, had about 7,000 troops and 200 tanks at each front line and that there were few civilians there.
Eshaq was asked about the risk of an increase in anti-American and pro-Taliban fervor if Washington attacked.
"I think that people understand the reason for any action, but I advise that the action should be very precise and it should be targeted against those terrorists and this is why the role of our people becomes important,'' he said.
"We are not asking America to invade our country. It is very painful even if one bomb is falling ... but at the same time we know the reason."
The Northern Alliance, said to have around 12,000 to 15,000 troops, has offered to spearhead the U.S. thrust against the Taliban, using its hardened troops already poised along the frontlines just 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital Kabul.
Previously it had complained of being left out of the loop of U.S. military planning as Washington built up a massive strike force in the region.
Independent sources have said the Taliban, which can reportedly field anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000 men, including Arabs and Pakistanis, has been forcibly conscripting refugees to bolster its frontlines.
The Washington Times newspaper reported that U.S. intelligence agents had identified 23 "terrorist training camps" in Afghanistan that had been targeted for attack - in northeastern Afghanistan, near the capital Kabul and the eastern towns of Jalalabad and Khost.
It said a small number of Taliban warplanes, tanks and anti-aircraft missile sites were also on the U.S. hit list.
Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef told AFP Wednesday that the "Islamic Emirate" was ready for war, but his increasingly desperate pleas for talks appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.
"We are ready for our defense ... But we do not want war. If they want war, if they don't want negotiations, it is their choice," Zaeef said.
"War is not a good thing. It will damage our country, our neighbors and the whole region."
The clash was never more vivid as Zaeef appeared on CNN's Larry King Live to reiterate that the Taliban wanted proof before it could hand over bin Laden, blamed for plotting the atrocities in New York and Washington.
"If Osama bin Laden is involved in this action, this is terrorist action," and "un-Islamic," Zaeef said, but stressed, "We need proof."
In response to similar pleas on Tuesday, the White House said there would be "no discussions, no negotiations."
Washington gave its allies evidence that it said established the involvement of bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network in the September 11th attacks.
But repeated U.S. efforts to show the Taliban proof of bin Laden's alleged involvement in the twin U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998 have failed to convince the militia of his guilt.
The only remaining country to recognize the Taliban, Pakistan, said Wednesday it had also seen the U.S. evidence, but refused to say whether it conclusively linked the Saudi dissident to the September 11th attacks.
"Now we have received some material and we are examining it, so how do you want us to jump the gun and reach a conclusion before we have seen the material?" foreign office spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan chided reporters at a press briefing.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped up the diplomatic offensive as he began a tour of the Middle East and Central Asia to shore up the international coalition against terrorism.
His meetings in Saudi Arabia, the United States' strongest Arab ally, then Oman, Egypt and Uzbekistan, would set the scene for U.S. action in Afghanistan following NATO's announcement of unqualified support Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in a meeting with Italy's minister of state for foreign affairs in Islamabad, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf requested that former Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, send an emissary to discuss plans for a post-Taliban administration in Afghanistan.
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