Ground Troops To Oust Taliban

LONDON, Thursday - After 12 days of aerial bombardment, ground troops must be deployed in Afghanistan if the US-led coalition is to successfully win the first leg in its war against terrorism, analysts and commentators said here Thursday. “If the Americans want to destroy the regime (Taliban) and the Al-Qaeda network, they’re going to have to put troops on the ground because they need to hold the ground, they can’t just rely just on the Northern Alliance,” said defense expert Paul Beaver. The Northern Alliance, which was led by Ahmad Shah Masood until he was assassinated in early September, is the main armed opposition to the Taliban militia, which has controlled most of Afghanistan since it seized power in 1996. The Taliban have been charged with harbouring Osama bin Laden, supposed mastermind of the September 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington that killed more than 5,700 people. “The problem is when to put them in (ground troops) and how, and where, and how many. I don’t think the Americans are in a position where they know what exactly they can do,” Beaver added. American and British aerial bombardment has been continuing since October 7 against terrorist suspect bin Laden and his Taliban protectors. The bombing runs on Afghanistan have focused on military targets in Kabul, the Taliban’s headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar and the garrison city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Beaver said the Northern Alliance “is not representative of everybody in Afghanistan.” If left to their own devices “all we would be doing is replacing one despotic regime with another,” he warned. “So there are going to be ground troops involved,” the British defence specialist concluded. AFP