October 23, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba'an 5, 1422

WASHINGTON, Oct 22: The United States is ready for Northern Alliance forces to move north and south against the Taliban, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday, confirming that US air strikes were hitting frontline Taliban positions north of Kabul.

“Are we now ready to allow the forces to move? We have been ready and we certainly are ready to have the Alliance forces move both north and south,” he said at a Pentagon press conference.

Rumsfeld was responding to suggestions that the US forces had refrained from targeting the front lines north of Kabul to keep the Northern Alliance from taking the capital before a post-Taliban power arrangement had been worked out.

He acknowledged that not all the political pieces to the puzzle had fallen into place, but they were being addressed.

“We believe very strongly that the threat to the world has not disappeared, and the sooner the Al Qaeda and Taliban forces are dealt with the sooner the threat will begin to moderate, and therefore we’re not holding back at all,” he said.

Rumsfeld confirmed that US warplanes were directly attacking Taliban targets arrayed against Northern Alliance forces north of Kabul and near Mazar-i-Sharif.

“The United States has been engaged in various air activities that have addressed Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, for the most part in the north, some north of Kabul and some north en route to Mazar-i-Sharif,” he said.

The Taliban have concentrated thousands of troops north of Kabul, and witnesses have reported seeing convoys of additional militiamen travelling to the lines to evade US-led strikes on Kabul.

TALIBAN DEPLOYMENT: The Taliban said on Monday its deployment of forces and weapons across the country to counter attacks by US commandos was 60 per cent complete.

“We have been deploying them all over the country. Sixty per cent of that work has been completed,” said Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s education minister.—AFP