Author: PTI
Publication: The Hindu
Date: October 31, 2001
Washington, Oct. 31. (PTI): Pakistan's
ISI continues to supply the Taliban with weapons and other goods even though
President Pervez Musharraf has replaced the agency's chief, the Northern
Alliance spokesman in Washington has said.
ISI is still supplying weapons to
the militia, Haron Amin told The Washington Times.
Urging the US to ignore pleas for
a pause in the fighting during Ramzan, Amin said ``the Taliban has always
violated the sanctity of the holy month of Ramzan with massacres and ethnic
cleansings.'' In 1998, during Ramzan, they drove 150,000 people from their
homes in ethnic cleansing of the Shomali plain north of Kabul. Ramzan is
for fasting, not a month to stop fighting terrorism,'' Amin said.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal
quoting US officials said strategists have come to the conclusion that
it will take a strong force of US ground troops to beat the Taliban.
The US now has a ground presence
with the Northern Alliance, but much stronger forces will be needed if
an impression is to be made on the Taliban, US officials told the journal.
For now, the US plans to rely on the Northern Alliance to advance on Kunduz
and Mazar-e-Sharif with the help of air strikes.
US officials hope a series of victories
in the north would rattle the Taliban and begin to whittle away support
for the ruling militia among Pushtuns in the south and east of the country.
