America helping Afghan rebels infiltrate the Taleban

11.00 am - By ANDREW BUNCOMBE

WASHINGTON - American aid to an Afghan rebel group, the Northern Alliance, is being used to bribe Taleban commanders and infiltrate their forces as part of efforts to overthrow the fundamentalist regime.

The Northern Alliance – whose fighters were until recently led by the late Ahmad Shah Massoud – is seeking large scale aid from the United States in exchange for joint military operations against Osama bin Laden and intelligence on his movements inside Afghanistan.

Its envoys have asked for $US50 million a month just for its anti-terrorism efforts. It is asking for millions more to equip its fighters and for humanitarian relief. "I wish I could tell you how much we need but there is no figure yet," said Haron Amin, the alliance's newly arrived envoy in Washington.

In an interview with The Independent, Mr Amin said the alliance – whose military leader was assassinated by men believed to have been sent by Osama bin Laden - was already making inroads in destabilising the Taleban forces and recruiting deserters, including its fields commanders.

He said money was needed to "bribe Taleban commanders and back people who were countering terrorism".

Mr Amin claimed that alliance members had already infiltrated the Taleban forces inside Afghanistan, and were presumably providing information on which commanders might be susceptible to bribery.

Mr Amin - formerly attached to the Afghanistan mission at the United Nations, which like the overwhelming majority of Afghan embassies around the world has remained loyal to the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani – said the involvement of alliance forces would be crucial if the US and Britain were to track down bin Laden.

"We know the geography, we have the people, we speak the language. We can infiltrate the forces of the Taleban. This could be crucial," said Mr Amin, who was born in Kabul in 1969 but fled the country after the 1979 Soviet invasion. He attended California’s Pasadena City College.

United States president George Bush has insisted he is not interested in "nation building". He confirmed this week, however, that he had approved plans to fund groups committed to establishing a government that is ‘peaceful and does not practice terrorism".

To try and build a coalition that would enable the alliance to take control of Afghanistan should the Taleban be forced out, its officials have been in discussion with the former Afghan monarch, 86-year-old Mohammed Zahir Shah, living in Rome.

It is also in negotiation with anti-Taleban groups in the south of Afghanistan. Mr Amin said the former King was prepared to return to Afghanistan to head a unity government that would prepare the country for open elections. He warned that one of the greatest dangers to the US would be not to have a long-term policy in regard to Afghanistan.

"You can go ahead and hunt down Osama bin Laden--and roll back the Taleban," he said. "But if you cannot create the kind of responsible government that is broad-based and fully representative and multi-ethnic, and a government that is going to be respected by its neighbours as well as a government that will live by international law, you're going to make conditions conducive to perpetrators to do the same sort of heinous crimes that they've committed on September 11."

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