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Taliban and U.S. at Loggerheads
ISLAMABAD, Oct 1 (News Agencies) - Afghanistan's Taliban regime was bracing for battle after news that British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington's closest ally, was expected to unveil plans Tuesday of a U.S.-led military assault against them.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Afghanistan's southern neighbor and the only country left that officially recognizes the Taliban, also warned it looked as if the Taliban's days were numbered.
U.S. officials refused to comment on whether action was imminent, but a senior State Department official said U.S. embassies around the world were being sent classified information to be shared with their host countries allegedly proving that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network were behind last month's devastating attacks on New York and the Pentagon that left an estimated 5,700 dead.
Some countries that have signed up to Washington's anti-terror coalition have demanded such evidence before facilitating U.S. military retaliation.
Sources close to British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would disclose on Tuesday details of the U.S. military response, with possible British assistance, to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that left an estimated 5,700 dead.
The strike will target the Taliban regime and bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, Blair was quoted as saying in a speech to be delivered to a Labor Party conference in Brighton, England.
"We will eliminate their hardware, disrupt their supplies and target their troops," he was to say.
"They [the Taliban] had the chance to surrender the terrorists [bin Laden and al-Qaeda] - they chose not to."
A U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Kitty Hawk, on Monday left Japan to join three other carriers already in position in South Asia and the Middle East, along with destroyers and submarines and more than 300 warplanes and 30,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
Pakistan's Musharraf told the BBC Monday that, "it appears that the United States will take action in Afghanistan, and we have conveyed this to the Taliban." Asked if the Taliban's days were numbered, he said: "It appears so."
In Afghanistan, Taliban Defense Minister Obaidulla gave a call to arms Monday, urging his fighters near the Pakistani border to "fight with all your might" against any foreign aggressors.
"Our enemy is powerful, but our God is the strongest of all," the Afghan Islamic Press quoted him as saying. On Sunday, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar threatened to wage a protracted and bloody guerrilla war if his regime is toppled.
In Rome, Afghan opposition groups took a major step towards an eventual post-Taliban administration, agreeing to form a 120-member supreme council as a step towards election of a head of state and transitional government.
The discussions centered on the possibility of returning the ex-king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, 86, who was ousted in 1973, but is seen as the single unifying force who can bind Afghanistan's disparate forces into a cohesive administration.
U.S. officials have refused to publicly endorse efforts to replace the Taliban, but White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Washington would "assist" groups looking to eradicate terrorism in Afghanistan.
French officials were more blunt. Defense Minister Alain Richard, speaking in Paris, said complete destruction of the Taliban was a "profoundly legitimate objective" in the fight against terrorism.
Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, in Algiers, said: "With regard to the Taliban regime, we think the future of the Afghan people would be better if it disappeared."
In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush said the U.S. campaign was making progress on several fronts, and efforts to bring suspected terrorists to justice and freeze their assets were already paying off.
"We're slowly but surely bringing them to justice. We're slowly but surely calling their hand and reining them in," Bush told a gathering of federal emergency management workers.
Bush also said that six million dollars in bank accounts tied to terrorist activity had been frozen. He said 50 al-Qaeda accounts were frozen worldwide, including 30 in the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday hinted that Bush might eventually target Iraq as part of its anti-terror campaign after dealing the "first phase": bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
"He [Bush] has ruled nothing out with respect to the second, third or fourth phases of our campaign militarily," Powell told CBS television.
At the United Nations in New York, a week-long debate on a global coalition against terrorism began Monday, after New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told delegates "there is no room for neutrality ... You are either with civilization or with terrorism."
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