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Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001

Although the Taliban has 200 tanks and hundreds of heavy-to-medium artillery pieces placed around Kabul, U.S. aircraft and cruise missiles have refrained from striking them, fearing destabilization of the country, U.S. officials told United Press International.

A State Department official said, "The feeling is that we don't want to destroy the Taliban and leave the country with nothing in the way of leadership."

"I think the administration has come to see moderate Taliban elements playing a part in any post-war government," another administration official added. "We frankly don't envision the Northern Alliance [alone] in that role."

Another U.S. official explained that past U.S. statements depicting the Taliban as "evil" have only complicated the new policy of attempting to woo "moderate" Taliban followers to take power in a post-war Afghanistan government. "We've demonized the hell out of them, and now we're trying to figure out how to escape from our own rhetorical cage," he said.

Of key importance is the reluctance of policymakers to have the Northern Alliance attempt to seize power, in spite of the fact that group has already received some aid, U.S. officials said.

As United Press International reported Tuesday exclusively, U.S. intelligence officials point out the Northern Alliance harbored Saudi renegade terrorist Osama bin Laden on his return to Afghanistan in 1996, and that, earlier, in the mid-1980s, Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud commanded a 3,000-strong "Algerian legion" of mujahedin that fought closely with bin Laden and his colleague Sheik Abdallah Yussef Azzam.

The Northern Alliance also has what one State Department official called "a dreadful human rights record," and Ken Pollack, terrorism expert on the Council on Foreign Relations said that the organization sells drugs heavily to markets such as the Russian and Chechen mafias.

Because of its penetration by bin Laden followers, the Northern Alliance also represents "a hell of a counterintelligence problem," said Pollack.

A State Department official said the Northern Alliance has already taken advantage of recent U.S. strikes to capture territory in the north as well as disrupt Taliban supply lines. "Too much of that and the country could unravel," he said.

According to several administration sources, Taliban officials in provinces bordering Pakistan are already being pressured by the populace to get rid of the so-called Arab-Afghans, fighters who have come from overseas to join bin Laden's mujahedin.

The Taliban is a far from monolithic entity. Even the inner core is a coalition of mujahedin from many different parties, and beyond this, many elements of the regime are warlords or local leaders co-opted by threats or opportunism.

In addition, many Taliban officials are said to be making efforts to leave the country, according to these sources. There are already been reports of looting by Taliban soldiers and the disappearance of the Taliban religious police, these sources said.

The CIA is engaged in widespread operations to recruit "moderate" Taliban members who are against the hard-line elements of the regime, administration officials said. The operation is taking place mainly in the south and is making "pretty free use of money," a U.S. official said.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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