November 5, 2001	Monday	haba’an 18, 1422

GULBAHAR, Afghanistan, Nov 4: The Afghan opposition on Sunday opened a new airstrip that could provide key support for any ground offensive against the Taliban by an international force.

US military advisors helped with the construction of the Sherkat airstrip, about 80 kilometres north of Kabul, where what appeared to be an Antonov twin-prop light transport plane landed, stayed for about 15 minutes, before taking off again.

Sherkat airstrip, near Gulbahar at the mouth of the Panjsher Valley, is the only usable airstrip controlled by the Northern Alliance south of the Hindu Kush mountains.

More than 500 meters (1,500 feet) long and made of compacted earth and stones, the strip has been tightly guarded since construction began more than a month ago.

A senior anti-Taliban official, Haji Abdul Qadir, said last month that US advisors were helping with the work.

The Northern Alliance’s foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said the airstrip was designed to handle An-32 or Hercules C-130 type planes carrying humanitarian and military aid.

The airstrip enables anti-Taliban forces to open a new supply link with areas north of the Hindu Kush, where military aid is arriving from Tajikistan.

Currently fresh troops and ammunition can only arrive in limited quantities by helicopter or after a gruelling week long drive. In recent days the road has been cut due to heavy snow on the Anjoman Pass at the northern end of the Panjshir.

The alliance has a few Mi-8 helicopters but the bad weather grounds them for a lot of the winter.

The only other airstrip controlled by the anti-Taliban alliance is in Faizabad, in the isolated northeastern province of Badakhshan.

The other main air base in the north is at Mazar-i-Sharif, which is now controlled by heavily entrenched Taliban troops.

The United States, which has been carrying out air strikes on the Taliban since October 7, reportedly wants a base to boost its ability to launch ground operations.

US military planners are considering establishing a base for commandos inside Afghanistan to help opposition forces, a senior defence official told AFP last week.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he wants to increase the number of US special forces teams inside Afghanistan fourfold to step up the war effort.

The Northern Alliance desperately needs a bridgehead for an offensive on Kabul and to support any new push toward Mazar-i-Sharif, where there is a runway, small control tower and is easily defended because of its exposed position on a plain.

Military transporters could land there as well as fighters and bombers.

An air base in Afghanistan would avoid the need for in-flight refuelling for US planes which now fly from aircraft carriers based in the Indian Ocean.

Sherkat could play a key role supplying fuel and ammunition to opposition alliance forces that launch any attack on Kabul.

For now, the 4,000-5,000 men around Sherkat are cut off from the world by the winter closure of the only road north through the inhospitable Hindu Kush mountains.—AFP