Major breakthrough: U.S.

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, NOV. 13. The United States has hailed the entry of the Northern Alliance into Kabul as a major military breakthrough in the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. warplanes are pursuing the fleeing Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters.

The Bush administration, after persistently telling the Alliance leaders not to move into the capital city, is watching apprehensively at the turn of events. Unnamed senior officials at the Pentagon have confirmed of massive defections of the Taliban forces.

At the White House, the spokesman, Mr. Ari Fleischer, said that the President, Mr.George Bush was ``very pleased'' with the progress of the war in Afghanistan. He said that President, Mr. Bush believed it was ``important for all parties to conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with human rights''.

The Pentagon spokeswoman, Ms. Victoria Clarke, said ``the reports are encouraging...To the extent that we can identify Taliban and Al-Qaeda fleeing, they (U.S. warplanes) are pursuing them.''

``I think it is great news. It means the initial phase of the campaign is going well,'' the Army Secretary, Mr. Thomas White, said on Monday night. The combination of well targeted air strikes and movement on the ground by the Northern Alliance had prompted the Taliban to flee Kabul, he added.

The fact that the Taliban had fled Kabul does not mean the end of military operations. ``If he is (Osama bin Laden) headed West, that's where we're headed as well,'' Mr. White said. The U.S. will continue the bombing runs of Taliban positions in the mountains around Kandahar. The apprehension is that the Taliban will try to re-group for a protracted guerrilla warfare.

The media has already started publishing grisly photographs of Taliban soldiers pulled out of trenches, beaten and shot to death by the Alliance soldiers - the kind of brutalities that the Bush administration was having in mind when it appealed to the Opposition to stay out of Kabul.

The Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in an appearance last night in News Hour with Mr. Jim Lehrer argued that the Northern Alliance move into Kabul was ``dangerous.'' He spoke of information of atrocities in Mazar-e-Sharif. And Pakistani envoys at the United Nations are calling on the Security Council to urgently deploy peacekeepers.

``And that's exactly my apprehension that we have seen a lot of atrocities, a lot of killings between various ethnic groups in Kabul after the Soviets left; and that's why we are of the opinion that Kabul should be maintained as a demilitarised city,'' Gen. Musharraf told News Hour.

The U.S. is yet to respond to the Alliance arguments that it is forced to enter Kabul because the Taliban had vacated it. Initially, Washington was pleased that the Opposition was keeping up its word and staying put on the outskirts of Kabul. But the entry into Kabul poses definite political problems for the Bush administration and its chief coalition partner, Pakistan. From the beginning, the Bush administration has been wanting a political solution beforehand involving a broad-based coalition - involving ``all'' actors and factions.

The U.N. is working overtime to get a political framework for Afghanistan in place. The Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, has said that the Foreign Ministers of the Six-plus-Two had ``stressed the need for speed... to bring the political aspects in line with the military development on the ground''.

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