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Pakistan braces for influx of troops
10/17/01
From wire reports
Islamabad, Pakistan- Pakistan is preparing for a launch of American ground troops into Afghanistan as early as this week, military and government sources said yesterday.
Pakistan's military has instructed commanders of air bases to be ready for the arrival of U.S. troop transport helicopters and helicopter gunships from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, which would need to refuel before flying on to missions in Afghanistan, according to senior military intelligence sources.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in their meetings here yesterday that with Taliban air defenses weakened after 10 days of airstrikes, Washington intends to escalate and focus its military campaign against Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, according to a Pakistani official privy to the talks.
"Operations could be anytime. . . . Small groups of soldiers or Marines are now expected to be sent in - not a major ground offensive, but for specific, targeted offensives," a top Pakistani intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
With Powell standing next to him, Musharraf repeated his commitment yesterday to the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military leader has already agreed to provide air corridors, intelligence and other logistical support for U.S. forces.
Pentagon sources last night would not confirm that ground troops will be going into Afghanistan by week's end. But privately they acknowledged that ground troops are indeed in the works. They declined, however, to confirm when.
Powell and Musharraf agreed yesterday that moderate officials from Afghanistan's radical Taliban regime should be allowed to serve in a post-Taliban government. Powell, on a three-nation Asia tour, said Taliban officials who signal a willingness to serve in a broad-based successor government should not be automatically excluded.
"You can't ethnically cleanse Afghanistan after this is over, but you can certainly get rid of this particular regime that has driven this country into such devastation," Powell said. Some of the more moderate elements in the Taliban may be willing "to participate in a different kind of government where the rights of all are respected," he said.
But the foreign minister of the Northern Alliance declared yesterday that his group will not accept surviving members of the Taliban in any future coalition set up to run the country. The Northern Alliance is fighting Taliban troops in Afghanistan.
"There is no such thing as moderate Taliban elements," Abdullah Abdullah said, seated at a table outside the foreign ministry in Khwaja Bahaouddin, Afghanistan. "Their object is terror and fanaticism. So who would expect us to join such a government with such people? This is against the objective of the international alliance against terrorism."
The expectation is that soon after Powell briefs President Bush on his trip to Pakistan and India, the first phase of a U.S. ground attack will begin. Officials in Pakistan note that the U.S.-led airstrikes began Oct. 7, soon after British Prime Minister Tony Blair returned from meeting Musharraf in Islamabad.
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