American troops land in Uzbekistan

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, OCT. 7. The first American troops have landed in Uzbekistan even as the Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, returned to Washington after a ``successful'' five-nation visit that took him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Uzbekistan and Turkey.

Mr. Rumsfeld's visit was seen as part of a diplomatic and military effort aimed at securing cooperation from West Asian allies as the military stranglehold against Afghanistan tightens.

The Bush administration is still on the verbal track - warning the Taliban militia to hand over Osama bin Laden and shut down terrorist camps or face the full wrath of the American military machine. That message was delivered once again over the weekend by President Bush, in his weekly radio address.

The Republican administration is maintaining that military operations alone are not going to be the strategy in the war against terrorism. In fact at the meeting of the Finance Ministers of the Group of Seven here on Saturday there was a broad consensus for intensification of efforts to tighten the financial noose against terrorist organisations.

But for now all eyes are on what the U.S. will be doing by way of military strikes against the Osama hideouts in Afghanistan and how the Bush administration will crack the Taliban militia. Militarily there is evidence now of the U.S. having encircled Afghanistan with full or partial support from everyone of the neighbouring States. Even a faraway State such as Georgia has thrown open its facilities for unlimited use by the U.S.

For quite sometime now there has been an impression that the military strikes are not going to be prolonged nor is it going to be an overwhelming use of ground forces to realise the objective. Rather the attention has been on small special forces operations assisted in a massive fashion from the skies. American and British Special Forces are already on the ground.

The talk here is that much of what the Bush administration will do militarily in the next several days will depend on the latest spy satellite images. The satellite was launched last Friday from California's Vandenberg Air Base and commissioned by the National Reconnaissance Office, a top secret outfit within the Pentagon. This satellite is said to be capable of picking up not only telephone conversations but also small groups of people trekking or camp fires. The administration is determined on going after Osama bin Laden and his associates and has made it known repeatedly in the last few weeks that the Afghan people are not the enemy.

There is at least one media report that when the U.S. decides to militarily strike against targets inside Afghanistan, it will probably be a ``solo'' affair. The reason is two-fold: West Asia allies have made it known that their facilities are more for a support than a strike role; and, Washington is quite aware of the political fallout of a strike in West Asia.

It is for these reasons that the Bush administration has been assembling such a formidable naval concentration. There are three aircraft carriers ready for action - with about 350 jet fighters available - and a fourth in the Mediterranean that can be called in anytime.

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Section  : International
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