Some 500 American and allied military personnel are in Afghanistan working with the opposition Northern Alliance, a Taliban official told the Afghan Islamic Press Tuesday.
"According to our information so far 500 Americans and their allies have reached opposition areas including professional soldiers and experts on technical affairs and training," said Taliban military intelligence chief Qari Ahmadullah.
"The majority of these people are in Faizabad, in the centre of Badakhshan province," he told the Pakistan-based private news agency from the northeastern Afghan province of Takhar, neighbouring Badakhshan.
Badakhshan, in the mountainous northeastern corner of the country, borders Tajikistan and is the only province fully controlled by the opposition.
Its capital Faizabad is the opposition's political nerve centre and the home of ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose chief general Abdul Qassim Fahim is the main commander of the anti-Taliban forces.
No independent confirmation of the Taliban intelligence chief's claims was immediately available but an opposition spokesman said the report was false.
"It's absolutely baseless and false that American military people are in Badakhshan," said an aide to Rabbani in Faizabad, who refused to be named.
"Someone might have confused the visiting journalists for Americans."
Opposition officials have said only small teams of US special forces and advisors are operating in their territory, mainly in northern Samangan province.
On Monday US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that more than three weeks of bombings had cleared the way for "phase two" of the military operation against the Taliban and their ally Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
He also said ammunition was being parachuted into Afghanistan and then carried overland to the opposition.
A senior US defence official has also said contingency plans were being made for a commando base inside Afghanistan to support the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban regime.
The Rabbani spokesman said no such base had been proposed at this stage, but it would be "implementable" if the opposition authorities agreed.
Qari said that on Monday night American planes attacked the Taliban's frontlines in Khwajaghar near the Tajik border in Takhar, but there was no damage -- ISLAMABAD, (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
