Taliban bolster border troops
Taliban rulers, vowing to ‘‘fight to the last’’ against those who side with the United States, today said they have sent thousands of troops to the border with Uzbekistan.
The hardline Afghanistan regime acted after the president of Uzbekistan allowed US troops the use of an air base for the anti-terrorism campaign.
‘‘We have deployed our forces there at all important places. This is the question of our honour, and we will never bow before the Americans,’’ a Taliban defence ministry source told the independent Afghan Islamic Press.
The international vice against the Taliban is tightening as the Islamic militia continues refusing to hand over Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, wanted for the terrorist attacks on the United States.
US President George W Bush, emphasising that ‘‘our enemy is not Islam,’’ told the Taliban their situation is grave.
‘‘Full warning has been given and time is running out,’’ Bush said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.
Taliban claims about sending troops to the Uzbekistan border could not be independently verified.
However, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Taliban troops were moving long-range artillery and multiple rocket launchers towards the border.
More than 10 guns and rocket launchers had moved within range of the Uzbek border town of Termez, Interfax said.
The Taliban is already fighting a coalition of opposition forces in northern Afghanistan. Its enemies had made little progress against the larger, better-armed Taliban, but their fortunes have been bolstered since the US attacks with a decision by Russia to step up weapons shipments.
On Saturday, a US-marked aircraft arrived in Uzbekistan one day after President Islam Karimov granted permission for the US to use an Uzbek air base. A local police officer said three or four planes had already landed.
Uzbekistan has agreed to let the United States station troops on its soil but not to launch offensive operations.
But a senior Taliban official, Amir Khan Muttaqi, threatened to send troops into the Central Asian neighbour if it participated in any US-led attack.
As the crisis deepened, Taliban leaders looked for ways to defuse the situation.
They offered to release eight aid workers, including two Americans, if Washington stopped its threats and began negotiations. The White House abruptly rejected the offer, and spokeswoman Claire Buchan called on the regime to release the aid workers immediately.
