Northern alliance says some Taliban fighters changing sides

MAHMOUD-E-RAQI, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's Taliban regime is weakened by low morale and some of its fighters are fleeing, defectors who crossed over to the northern alliance said Thursday.

"They say their morale is high but it isn't. Fighters are running away to Pakistan or Iran, or joining" the northern alliance, said 30-year-old Abdul Ghafur, who defected four days ago.

Ghafur and nine other Taliban defectors spoke to reporters at this rebel stronghold near the front line north of Kabul. Seven of the 10 were ethnic Tajiks, not representatives of the Pashtun tribe like most of the Taliban, and their claims could not be independently verified.

The northern alliance has claimed that about 5,200 Taliban fighters have defected in recent days in a sign the hard-line Islamic militia is faltering under the U.S. assaults -- an assertion the Taliban have denied.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday that a campaign of U.S. airborne broadcasts and leaflet drops inside Afghanistan was scoring successes in encouraging Taliban fighters to defect or surrender.

"The hope is that those Taliban people will in fact move over and support the northern alliance and the tribes in the south," Rumsfeld said in a CNN interview. "That is something that is taking place as we speak."

The Taliban ambassador to neighboring Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, denied the reports of defections and low morale.

"Until there is one Talib alive in Afghanistan, America cannot defeat us," he told reporters Thursday in the Pakistani border town of Chaman. "Our morale is high and we will never bow to unjust demands of any power."

But the 10 defectors who spoke to reporters described a weakened Taliban regime. Taliban fighters were sleeping in civilians' homes to escape the U.S. airstrikes, Ghafur said, holding a machine gun as he spoke.

He recounted how Taliban commanders rejoiced after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, and said Taliban troops were told to "fight to the last drop of blood" after retaliatory strikes began earlier this month.

Mohammed Ismael, 35, said he and the others defected because they were fed up with Taliban policies, not because they were afraid of the U.S. bombing.

"If you give an Afghan a machine gun and tell him to fight, he will never worry about dying. He will die to defend Afghanistan," said Ismael, holding a rocket launcher.

Meanwhile, a Washington-based envoy for the northern alliance, Haron Amin, criticized the U.S. military for not bombing Taliban positions along the front line north of Kabul. The lack of bombing has made the front lines the Taliban's "best haven," he said.

"We don't see any merit in the delay," Amin said Thursday. "Our ground commanders are ready and they want to make the move, and there's no coordination."

Thousands of fighters are undergoing special training and have been put on high alert to advance on Kabul as soon as the United States bombs the Taliban front line, said Gul Mohammed, a front-line commander in the strategic Panjshir Valley, about 30 miles north of Kabul.

"After that we will capture Kabul and the remaining troops of the Taliban will join us," Mohammed said in an interview as artillery fire reverberated in the background.

Amin accused Pakistan of pressuring the United States not to coordinate military strategy with the northern alliance because Pakistan is hostile to the northern rebels. "We believe again that the Pakistanis are defining the terms."

His group's push to move on Kabul would violate a political agreement reached recently between the government of Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, which the northern alliance supports, and the deposed king, Mohammad Zaher Shah.

The two sides had agreed that opposition fighters would not enter Kabul until a new form of government was agreed upon.

News of that agreement may not have reached the front lines where Mohammed and his men are facing off with the Taliban -- and it may well meet resistance among fighters thirsting for revenge after years of defeats.

"We have power now. We're ready to move," said Abdul Qahar Abed, the top northern alliance official in the Panjshir Valley town of Jabal Saraj.

"But it is better to reach an agreement" before advancing on Kabul, he added.

On Tuesday, the United States hit positions just behind the Taliban's front lines north of Kabul, raising hopes among the opposition that what it has sought since the start of the campaign -- strikes directly aimed at breaking the Taliban line -- could be realized.

Pentagon officials have avoided saying whether U.S. warplanes have begun directly hitting Taliban front lines, though Rumsfeld said Monday the front lines would soon no longer be "safe" for the Taliban.

In recent days, the brunt of the fighting between the Taliban and the northern alliance has taken place around the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The alliance claims to be closing in on the Taliban-controlled city, but the Taliban say they will be able to defend it.

Ibrahim Ghafoori, second secretary of the northern alliance-controlled Afghan Embassy in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, said he had contact Thursday with forces fighting near Mazar-e-Sharif.

"The fighting is going on still," he said. "There are no changes in the front line."