|
Afghan Opposition Claims it is Poised to Attack Kabul
JABAL SERAJ, Afghanistan, Nov 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The military chief of Afghanistan's opposition, General Mohammad Qasim Fahim, said Monday his forces were ready to march on Kabul, despite signs the anti-Taliban army were far from prepared, news agencies reported.
"We are ready, but it all depends on our strategy and the circumstances," Fahim, the successor to Ahmad Shah Masood, told reporters attending a military parade and exercises at this Northern Alliance (NA) base, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The maneuvers included an inspection of some 2,000 troops dressed in new uniforms, 17 tanks and 20 armored personnel carriers, AFP reported.
The three days of exercises are aimed at turning around an army that has suffered five years of setbacks, and shifting the emphasis of training and tactics from defensive to offensive - now that the Taliban are under attack by the United States.
"These military exercises show we have reached the highest level of preparedness," Fahim explained, as tanks began a round of target practice on a hill overlooking the divided Shomali valley.
Fahim, however, did not address the troops and only made a brief inspection of a line of soldiers.
Aiming at a hillside bunker some 500 meters away - which one commander described as a mock hideout of Osama bin Laden - just a few of the shells shot during the 10-minute volley of tank fire actually hit the target.
President Burhanuddin Rabbani, ousted from Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, told the soldiers to follow the example of late Alliance leader Shah Masood, whose absence has been noticeable given the slow mobilization of troops in Jabal Siraj.
"Do not forget his resistance," Rabbani, head of Afghanistan's United Nations-recognized government, told the lines of fighters on a dusty hillside near this Northern Alliance base, AFP reported.
He also insisted that it was up to opposition fighters, and not foreign troops, to oust the Taliban from power.
"If you cannot defeat them, nobody can, because you have the experience that no other foreigner has," he said.
Rabbani said Sunday the Northern Alliance would launch a full ground assault against Taliban forces before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts in mid-November.
''It will be started before Ramadan,'' Rabbani said in an interview with Kyodo News, quoted by Afghan Radio. ''The Taliban have never respected Ramadan...We prefer to continue fighting against the Taliban.''
Asked if the assaults will start on all war fronts at the same time, he said, "that is more effective."
But, conversations with several lower-ranking military officials suggested the Northern Alliance - a loose coalition of mostly ethnic-minority factions opposed to the Pashtun-dominated Taliban - were far from ready, AFP said.
One tank commander said each of his tanks had been allocated just 100 liters of fuel each. "Just about enough to drive to the frontline and back again," he explained.
Opposition military sources in Jabal Siraj are also desperately short of the quantities of ammunition needed to launch an assault, and any soldiers reportedly have not received their salaries in six months.
Despite absorbing several days of sporadic U.S. air attacks, Taliban fighters at the front - 50 kilometers north of Kabul - still hold the crucial high ground. And despite the Northern Alliance's recent mobilization, Taliban forces still outnumber their adversaries.
The Taliban, which overthrew Rabbani's government in Kabul in 1996, control about 90% of Afghanistan.
The United Nations, however, still regards Rabbani as Afghanistan's president and his representative occupies the country's U.N. seat, Afghan Radio reported.
In the event the Taliban authority collapses, a supreme council called the Loya Jirgha would be convened in Kabul; probably to work as a transitional government. The body, said Rabbani, will formulate a new constitution, a national army and restoration plans.
"After these steps, there would be an opportunity to establish a broad-based government. Elections will take place after statistics on the population are compiled. Then the government will be formed," he said.
|
