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Taliban Fire on Russian Border Post in Tajikistan
DUSHANBE, Oct 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Taliban troops opened fire on Russian troops guarding the Tajik-Afghan frontier, and launched two artillery shells into Tajik territory from positions across the Pyandzh River, a border guard spokesman said Wednesday, news agencies reported.
Taliban fighters attacked the border post at Kupletin, some 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Dushanbe, with automatic gunfire late Tuesday, but did not kill or wound anybody, the spokesman said.
Russian troops did not return fire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The Taliban launched the attack from positions only 400 meters (yards) away, on the other side of the Pyandzh River which forms a natural frontier between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
The two artillery shells fell onto Tajik territory a dozen kilometers (around seven miles) away from Kupletin, the Russian border guard said.
Some 11,000 Russian border guards patrol the 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan under an agreement signed by Moscow and Dushanbe.
Meanwhile, Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloyev denied Wednesday possessing information that the United States dropped paratroopers outside Kandahar in northwestern Afghanistan.
"Dropping paratroopers in the midst of Taliban-controlled territory is possible theoretically and practically if a preliminary agreement is reached with those Taliban supporters who are prepared to hand over terrorist No. 1 Osama bin Laden to the international community," Khairulloyev told Russian Interfax news agency. "Otherwise, such a maneuver would be suicidal," he said.
"The chiefs of the U.S. or any other country's army would never take such a pointless risk," he said. Khairulloyev does not rule out that U.S. or Pakistani representatives have begun secret talks with a Taliban group tolerant to U.S. demands. However, "Tajikistan has neither direct, nor indirect, evidence of such talks," he pointed out, Interfax news agency added.
"As Afghanistan's climatic conditions permit year-round ground operations, sooner or later ground forces of the Northern Alliance or U.S. special troops will launch a large-scale offensive," he continued.
"There is no other way to neutralize the terrorists who have fortified their positions in Afghanistan," he said. Neither aviation, nor artillery strikes, will drastically change the situation, he said.
"Terrorists cannot be divided into good and bad ones, they should be eliminated all together," he added.
The Northern Alliance is preparing a large-scale offensive, he said.
"The military and political situation has remained stable, normal and fully-controllable" in Tajikistan, whose border with Afghanistan totals 1,346 kilometers. Afghanistan is not posing a threat to Tajikistan's security, he noted.
In accordance with a government decision, Russia has started supplying arms and military equipment to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, Interfax news agency reported.
Afghanistan's government, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, will receive forty T-55 tanks, eighty BMP-1 and BMP-2 combat vehicles, and several dozen armored vehicles (BTR-60) before the end of October, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax.
The source said that, according to some estimates, the total value of the military assistance provided by Russia to the Northern Alliance before the end of this year will reach $45 million.
Afghanistan's deputy military attaché in Tajikistan, Abdulhalil Bakhtier confirmed that Northern Alliance units led by Rashid Dostum advanced toward Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday.
However, on the night of October 16th, the troops were forced back to their initial positions 10 kilometers south of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Northern Alliance fully dominates the provinces of Badakhshan, Ghor, Samangan, Badghis and most of Takhar province, he noted. Moreover, it controls some areas in the provinces of Parwan, Balkh, Herat, and Fariab, as well as the outskirts of the strategically important cities of Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Jabal Saraj.
It also controls the Panjshir Gorge, where the Northern Alliances' main materiel and personnel base is located.
The anti-Taliban coalition has captured about 20% of Afghan territory. The Northern Alliance is preparing a large-scale offensive that "we will not coordinate with anyone," he pointed out.
The Alliance "possesses a sufficient quantity of arms and ammunition to single-handedly defeat the Taliban," he said.
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