U.S. military teams in Tajikistan, assessing use of former Soviet military bases

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – A small group of American military personnel is in Tajikistan assessing the possibility of using at least three bases there to expand the U.S. bombing campaign and strengthen support for Afghan opposition forces, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.

"Airfields closer to Afghanistan would give us an advantage in being able to generate sorties," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters, speaking of the number of bombing runs U.S. aircraft are able to accomplish.

"We'd hope to have a capability to get access to Afghanistan from the north and the south, " the admiral said.

Tajikistan is on Afghanistan's northern border.

Asked about the success of the monthlong bombing campaign against Taliban forces, Stufflebeem said they appear to have suffered "substantial" losses, but he said he could not offer any numerical estimate of the damage done.

Pentagon officials have said additional bases in the region might also be useful for additional U.S. humanitarian aid flights or for establishing an overland route for such aid into Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met with Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov on Saturday but did not announce any deal. Rumsfeld was returning to Washington Monday.

The U.S. assessment team in Tajikistan is examining three bases: Kulyab, Khojand and Kurgan-Tyube.

In a sign of stepped-up U.S. activity in the region, a team of five U.S. military personnel landed at a new airstrip in Golbahar, Afghanistan, in the northern end of the Shomali plain "to help coordinate efforts in the war," opposition interior minister Yunis Qanoni told The Associated Press Monday.

He said the men arrived Sunday from Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe in a small twin-engine plane. They were expected to study the new dirt landing strip to see if it's ready to handle supplies, which would bolster northern alliance forces whose supply route through formidable mountains from Tajikistan to the north has already been snowed over.

On Sunday, U.S. aircraft dropped bombs on Taliban front lines close to four key cities in northern Afghanistan, including Mazar-e-Sharif, where the anti-Taliban northern alliance says it has launched a major offensive.

The bombing focuses on targets near Bagram, Taloqan and Konduz, in addition to Mazar-e-Sharif, the Pentagon said Sunday. The Taliban militia have forces arrayed against the northern alliance in all of those areas. Caves and tunnels suspected as hide-outs for the Taliban and the al-Qaida terror network also were targeted by U.S. aircraft.

Mazar-e-Sharif was lost by the rebels to the Taliban in 1998. Retaking it would open a major supply route for the northern alliance from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

To aid the rebels, more U.S. special forces also have entered Afghanistan in the last few days, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"The more teams we get on the ground, the more effectively we'll bring (opposition rebels') power to bear on the Taliban lines," Myers said.

Rumsfeld said last week he hoped to at least triple the number of special forces troops inside Afghanistan, now believed to number between 100 and 200.

The general commanding U.S. operations in Afghanistan said their purpose is "to provide an advantage to opposition leaders with whom we share a common objective."

"We synchronize our activities with their activities," Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, said on ABC's "This Week."

The Taliban government is weakening but still controls substantial troops that will take time to thin out and conquer, top U.S. commanders said.

"We're setting in for the long haul," Myers said. Through the winter, the United States will supply the rebels with ammunition, food and cold-weather fighting gear, he said. "We think that they have every chance of prevailing."

During a visit to India on Monday, Rumsfeld said that with more U.S. military teams on the ground in Afghanistan to direct aircraft, "The effectiveness of bombing is improving every day."

He also said he didn't think the operation would take years and that it would be completed in the least possible time.

APNP-11-05-01 1409CST