GULBOHAR (Afghanistan) Nov 1: Afghanistan’s opposition is not ready to launch an attack on Kabul even with the support of US carpet-bombing of Taliban frontlines, a senior official admitted on Thursday.
“The American raids are not sufficient, and are not sufficiently concentrated. And we need ammunition and other equipment,” said General Hussein Anwari, who heads a small Shiite Muslim faction and is on the Northern Alliance’s leadership council.
The United States Wednesday used a B-52 bomber against the Taliban’s frontline 50 kilometres north of Kabul in the most concentrated and heaviest attack since militia positions in the Shomali plains first came under fire on October 17.
While some officials here have said several days of such carpet-bombing raids would be enough, other officials, including Anwari, have been more candid in describing the opposition’s arms shortage.
Furthermore, on Thursday the weather began to deteriorate here, with thick clouds carrying snow and rain sweeping across the mountains and closing off the Northern Alliance’s main supply line — via the 4,300 metre-high Anjoman Pass — to the front north of Kabul.
General Anwari, who heads the Harakat-i-Islami (Islamic Movement) faction, also said the US had yet to give any military aid to the Northern Alliance.
He said some equipment including tanks and armoured personnel carriers had been received from Russia, but he insisted they were paid for before the September 11 attacks blamed on Osama bin Laden.
Anwari also confirmed that the Northern Alliance’s military chief, General Mohammad Qasim Fahim, met on Tuesday in Dushanbe with the head of the US’s military campaign in Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks.
He said Fahim laid out the anti-Taliban opposition’s military strength on the ground, but was unable to give any further details of the talks in the Tajik capital.
“We hope to receive munitions (from the US), cannons, and heavy equipment. That would be the most efficient way to fight the Taliban,” Anwari said.
The Northern Alliance’s foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, later told a press conference that the “meeting was in line with our request for greater coordination.”
Abdullah also conceded the opposition was suffering from supply problems.
“We do have certain logistical problems,” Abdullah said. “I would not say we have everything required.”
But he pointed to the 1979-1989 war against the Soviet occupation, when badly-equipped mujahedin forces managed to keep up their fight, and said limited supplies would not halt an assault on Kabul.
“There might be manoeuvres and exercises very soon, in a few days. Our forces will be put to the highest degree of preparation,” he added.
Judging Wednesday’s B-52 raid as “very effective”, he contradicted Anwari by saying that “with effective bombing, in a matter of days we could break the frontlines.”
The frontlines north of Kabul were generally quiet on Thursday, with no jet activity detected in the air while on the ground just a few isolated shots were heard.—AFP