JABAL SERAJ, Oct 29: The United States will not win the war in Afghanistan through airstrikes alone and cannot expect its military campaign to be over by Christmas, a senior anti-Taliban official said.

“The perception might have been that the Americans started bombing and we will be in Kabul and Kandahar. This is not the way things will happen,” Northern Alliance’s “foriegn minister” Abdullah Abdullah said.

“There are two messages: the United States has to be patient, and things could have been done better and can be done better,” he said.

But he dismissed any suggestion that the war against the Taliban was not going well, even though the campaign of US-led airstrikes was now into its fourth week and the militia were showing no signs of cracking.

“We were optimistic when we were fighting the terrorist groups alone, before the Sept 11 attacks. We knew that it was very hard, we know that it will be time-consuming. But we knew we were going to win,” he asserted.

“Now we see the whole world has moved to destroy the Taliban, so why should we be pessimistic? The beginning of the end of the Taliban has started.”

But the war, he said, would not be quick or easy — and certainly not over by Christmas.

“The United States should look at it differently, as there were a lot of Christmases before when they could have done something,” Abdullah said. “It will not be an overnight solution, and it will not happen from the sky.”

Asked what he defined as patience, he mentioned the Afghan Mujahedeen’s war against the Soviet army from 1979 to 1989.

“But of course we don’t expect them (the US) to be as patient as we are,” he joked.

But above all, he said, the US had to better coordinate its efforts with the Northern Alliance, a loose coalition of anti-Taliban groups that is the only armed domestic resistance fighting the Taliban.

But he refused to elaborate on what kind of demands he was pressing on Washington: “By better coordination, I mean exactly that. Better coordination.”

On the subject of a future presence of US ground troops for a possible offensive against the Taliban in the north and in Kabul, Abdullah insisted that “the main job will be done by our forces”.

But he said the airstrikes had to go further, especially on the frontlines north of Kabul where the Taliban have concentrated an estimated 6,000 fighters, many of whom are believed to be Arab volunteers loyal to Osama bin Laden.

“Round the clock bombing is needed. Intense bombing, carpet bombing,” Abdullah said, adding that while the past week of occasional strikes on Taliban positions had largely hit their targets, they were not enough.

“If the enemy cannot sleep, that would change everything. How could they resist in the event of an attack?”

Analysts believe the Northern Alliance stands little chance of advancing on Kabul on its own steam, given they are outnumbered by a Taliban army that is well dug in and controls the high ground on frontlines 50 kilometres north of the capital.

With a conspicuous lack of any major military preparations around this Northern Alliance nerve centre 80 kilometers north of Kabul, there has been mounting speculation that the Taliban would first face attacks in the north of the country.

Abdullah, who has risen to the helm of the Northern Alliance after working for years as a close aide to the late opposition leader Ahmad Shah Masood, also touched on his personal sadness that it took the terror attacks in New York and Washington for the Taliban to be considered an enemy.—AFP