Afghanistan's Taliban regime, diplomatically isolated and facing the threat of US military action, faced mounting pressure on the home front Wednesday as opposition forces claimed fresh territorial gains.
In fierce overnight fighting, the forces of the Northern Alliance claimed to have captured six strategic Taliban-held posts northwest of Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province.
Fighting has intensified across the north of Afghanistan in the past week with the disparate anti-Taliban forces that make up the Northern Alliance apparently emboldened by the massive US military build up in the region.
With Saudi Arabia following the lead of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and severing diplomatic relations, neighboring Pakistan remained the only nation to maintain ties with the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Kabul.
US President George W. Bush welcomed Saudi Arabia's decision Tuesday to cut ties with the Taliban, who are facing the threat of US military strikes for refusing to turn over bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic extremist blamed by Washington for the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
US officials said meanwhile they had been in contact with various Afghan factions, including the main opposition Northern Alliance and the former monarch, King Zahir Shah, 86, who lives in exile in Rome.
But the White House stressed that ousting the Taliban was not the primary goal of the United States and spokesman Ari Fleischer said any US military retaliation for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "is not designed to replace one regime with another."
Removing the Taliban by military force would leave Washington saddled with the responsibility for a country devastated by two decades of war, and could have a destabilizing impact on Pakistan.
Abdul Sattar, the foreign minister of Pakistan, which has been the chief backer of the Taliban but has pledged its "full cooperation" with the US "war on terrorism," warned for his part that assisting Afghan opposition forces would be a "recipe for great suffering for the people of Afghanistan."
Facing a loss of dipomatic support, a renewed opposition offensive and the threat of US military attack, the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, remained defiant issuing an appeal to the American people to urge the US government to "reconsider their wrong and cruel policies."
The suicide plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which left nearly 7,000 people dead were carried out to avenge US "cruelty" toward Muslim countries, Omar said in a statement.
The United States has accused bin Laden, who has lived in Afghanistan since 1996 as a "guest" of the Taliban, of masterminding the attacks and has vowed to capture him "dead or alive."
Omar, in his message, said "the American people must know that the sad events that took place recently were the result of their government's wrong policies.
"Your government is perpetrating all sorts of atrocities in Muslim countries. Instead of supporting your government's policies you should urge your government to reconsider their wrong and cruel policies," he said.
"The recent sad event in America was the result of these cruel policies and was meant to avenge this cruelty," he said.
Omar again defended bin Laden and reiterated that he was incapable of planning the sophisticated suicide hijackings.
Amid continuing fears of a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on the country's neighbors to open their borders to refugees fleeing possible retaliatory strikes by the United States.
"In accordance with international law, the borders must be open to civilians seeking refuge," Annan said.
Afghanistan's six neighbors -- China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- officially closed their borders to Afghan refugees even before the attacks on the United States on September 11.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 1.5 million Afghans could flee the country ahead of possible US strikes -- ISLAMABAD (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
