U.S. Plans to Boost Its Forces

The Pentagon plans to at least triple the number of U.S. special troops stationed in Afghanistan, part of a substantial broadening of Washington’s effort to help opposition fighters take the offensive against the Taliban regime, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

Flatly denying persistent reports that the Bush administration has held back its support for opposition forces in order to give diplomats time to devise a post-Taliban government, Rumsfeld said U.S. air support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, already substantial, will increase as soon as the additional American troops arrive to spot targets.

“We have a number of teams cocked and ready to go; it’s just a matter of having the right kind of equipment to get them there and the landing zones in places where it’s possible to get in and get out,” Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.

He said the deployment of the U.S. special troops has been hampered by bad weather and, at least once, ground fire from Taliban forces. But he said he expects the reinforcements to arrive “in the days immediately ahead.”

The increasing U.S. support is intended to set the stage for a new offensive by Taliban foes. In another sign that such an effort is pending, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that the Pentagon is likely to deploy two new unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, including the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, which is designed to track the movement of troops across hundreds of miles and call in fire on them.

Earlier this week, Rumsfeld disclosed that a “modest” number of U.S. special troops--fewer than 100--were in Afghanistan. On Thursday, he said he hoped to multiply that number by three or four.

But as Rumsfeld was pledging closer military cooperation with the Taliban’s foes, some of them appeared to be in difficulty.

Taliban troops were reportedly battling tribal leader Hamid Karzai, a supporter of Afghanistan’s exiled king, in the mountains of the central province of Oruzgan. Karzai, an ethnic Pushtun normally based in Quetta, Pakistan, recently returned to Afghanistan as part of the effort to form a broad-based government to replace the Taliban.

Also Thursday, the Taliban claimed that Northern Alliance forces had failed to advance on the strategic northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, despite coordinated air support from U.S. warplanes. The Taliban said the alliance forces had launched a three-way ground attack but had been forced to retreat, leaving their dead on the battlefield.

The alliance’s foreign minister, Abdullah, disputed the Taliban’s account, saying, “There haven’t been any significant activities in the past three or four days” along the Mazar-i-Sharif fronts.

Because Mazar-i-Sharif is near Afghanistan’s border with Uzbekistan, which has provided a base for U.S. forces, the city is seen as an essential bridge for supplies to anti-Taliban troops. Its airport is a potential landing and refueling site for U.S. aircraft.

More than two weeks ago, the alliance and the Pentagon were predicting that Mazar-i-Sharif would fall within days. When it didn’t, the opposition admitted that it had relied too much on U.S. air power and failed to mount a serious ground attack against the Taliban.

The front lines north of the capital, Kabul, were mostly silent Thursday, with the biggest flashes and rumbles coming from a late afternoon thunderstorm. Early this morning, jets were in action again, dropping bombs through the night until after dawn. At 8:32 a.m., B-52s dropped a stream of bombs on Tota Khan ridge, a Taliban outpost that also had been hit Wednesday. It returned and dropped a single bomb near the main road to Kabul.

Abdullah confirmed the assessment of front-line commanders that a few more days of heavy airstrikes on Taliban positions north of Kabul would be enough to open the way for a Northern Alliance offensive to surround the city.

Abdullah claimed that the poorly armed and trained alliance is bringing thousands of reinforcements to the Kabul front, and while conceding that the opposition had “certain logistical problems,” he said that the troops would be at the highest state of readiness in the next few days.

But the decision on whether to make a push toward Kabul hadn’t been made yet, Abdullah added.

“I’m very reluctant to talk about a timetable because it is not me who will decide. These are all military issues,” Abdullah said. “But I would say with effective, intense bombings of the front lines, it would be a matter of days.”

Late Thursday and early today, U.S. warplanes attacked the capital itself for the first time in four days, striking targets on its northern edge.

The targets could not be determined, but the area includes a number of air-defense and weapons storage sites. Taliban gunners responded with sporadic bursts of antiaircraft fire.

The increasingly close relationship between the United States and the Northern Alliance has raised caution flags among Pakistani officials. Pakistan is concerned that the alliance, dominated by Tajik and Uzbek ethnic groups, would be unable to govern Afghanistan, where Pushtuns form the biggest segment. The alliance insists that it supports a broad-based government embracing all ethnic groups and other factions, but it seems eager to strengthen its position on the battlefield as a step toward greater postwar influence.

Rumsfeld leaves today for a trip that begins in Russia but that could include stops in Pakistan and other countries near Afghanistan. Rumsfeld said Thursday that the trip’s itinerary was still being worked out with other governments.

Discussing the support for anti-Taliban forces, Rumsfeld said the focus is primarily on the Northern Alliance, the remnant of the government that the Taliban overthrew in 1996. But he said Washington will also support other anti-Taliban groups.

“We are trying to increase the number of forces that are opposing the Taliban” and its ally, Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, he said. “And we’re not only trying to increase the number that are doing that, we’re trying to improve their success.

“We are supplying ammunition and supplies to the Northern Alliance and to other forces opposing [the Taliban] as fast as we can.”

The additional troops to be deployed in Afghanistan are known to the Pentagon as liaison officers. Like the ones already on the ground, they will spot targets for U.S. warplanes, help with the delivery of U.S. weapons, ammunition, food and other supplies and assist the opposition forces with communications.

Rumsfeld said that delivering the additional special troops has been difficult, primarily because of bad weather. But he said heavy Taliban ground fire also prevented helicopters carrying the troops from landing.

Asked if there had been U.S. casualties, Rumsfeld said: “Definitely not. The ground fire was simply too heavy to unload the folks. And so they went back. And they’ll try it again in a different landing area.”

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Kempster reported from Washington and Watson from Rabat, Afghanistan. Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.