WASHINGTON, Oct 22: Intensifying US air strikes against Taliban front lines north of Kabul on Monday mark a shift in tactics that US officials expect will help propel opposition ground forces toward the Afghan capital before the onset of winter.

But how strong a push to make for Kabul is a bedevilling question for US strategists.

A pair of US fighter jets was seen over the Shomali plains north of Kabul striking frontline positions for a second consecutive day, although news photographers said they saw bombs fall on opposition positions as well as those held by the Taliban.

US leaders appear to have decided that escalating pressure is needed on Kabul and the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif if the Taliban is to be cracked before winter sets in.

A looming humanitarian disaster also must figure in the calculations of the US military, which already is contending with daily Taliban claims of high civilian casualties from two weeks of US air strikes.

“I think it would be in our interest and the interest of the coalition to see this matter resolved before winter strikes and it makes our operations that much more difficult,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.

“The actual seizure of land and which cities might be the right ones to cause that to come about, I’m not sure,” he said in an interview with Fox television.

“But certainly the Northern Alliance is on the march in the north toward Mazar-i-Sharif, and I think they’re gathering their strength to at least invest Kabul or start moving on Kabul more aggressively,” he said.

The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif would weaken if not eliminate the hold of Taliban forces across the north to the western city of Herat. It also would open a staging area inside the country both for US military operations and relief efforts, according to US defence officials.

However, with winter fast approaching, US strategists face an acute dilemma over whether to try to take Kabul in the coming weeks.

The capital’s capture by forces of the opposition Northern Alliance would be a blow to the ruling Taliban, and may ease conditions for civilians facing an uncertain winter.

But unless the country’s ethnic Pashtun majority can be enticed to join a coalition government with the ethnic Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara minorities that dominate the Northern Alliance, the United States could wind up defending the capital against a united Pashtun south.

“I think if we want a stable Afghanistan, all parts of Afghan society in the Afghan political spectrum have to be represented,” Powell said.

He said the Northern Alliance would be an important part of a post-Taliban government. “But at about 15 percent of the population, I don’t even think they think that they’re in a position at this time to be the dominant figure,” he said.

The US military has until now largely by-passed the Taliban positions on the frontlines, about 47 kilometres north of Kabul, striking for the first time on Oct 16 and 17 but making little impact.

The strikes resumed on Sunday and continued on Monday, according to AFP correspondents close to the frontlines. Four photographers at an opposition post said they saw two bombs land near opposition posts.

Pentagon officials have said one reason they had not attacked those Taliban positions before was because they lacked good intelligence on targets and because of the challenge of keeping US and opposition forces from accidentally firing on one another.

But the US military leadership also has cautioned patience and warned that the campaign was unlikely to be over by winter.

“We’re trying to do the right thing. We doing it in a very measured way,” said General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It may take until next spring. It may take until next summer. It may take longer than that in Afghanistan.”—AFP