Afghan Opposition Group Lobbies for U.S. Assistance

Capitalizing on new U.S. interest, Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance is seeking $50 million a month in aid from the Bush administration, as well as help obtaining a wide range of military equipment that includes tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers and artillery, according to its envoys.

In exchange, say these representatives--who now are soliciting support in Washington--the Northern Alliance, also known as the United Front, is offering joint military operations with its 15,000 fighters to track suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and topple the ruling Taliban.

“What we are saying is deploy [U.S.] Special Forces in coordination with our forces on the ground, make fast moves, secure certain spots and then expand our territories,” Haron Amin, the alliance’s new Washington representative, said in an interview.

Along with air support, Amin said, “that would get the job done.”

Without the alliance, the U.S. has no chance of finding Bin Laden, especially because it needs the Afghan opposition for local intelligence, he claimed.

So far, the alliance has received “mixed signals” from the administration that vary “day to day,” according to Amin.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday that the U.S. clearly should assist various opposition groups in Afghanistan.

“There’s no question but that there are any number of people in Afghanistan, tribes in the south, the Northern Alliance in the north, that oppose Taliban. And clearly we need to recognize the value they bring to this anti-terrorist, anti-Taliban effort--and, where appropriate, find ways to assist them,” Rumsfeld said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

But President Bush also has said that he does not intend to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan, while Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the Afghan government was not a major factor in U.S. deliberations.

The administration has been treading warily in part because Pakistan has warned against siding with the Northern Alliance, since it is made up largely of Tajik, Uzbek and other ethnic minorities and does not represent the largest segments of the Afghanistan population, the Pushtun. U.S. officials are aware that appearing to side with even an array of minorities against the Pashtuns could perpetuate conflict in a country already ravaged by 22 years of fighting.

Human rights groups also have cited the alliance for past brutalities, both when it ruled from 1991 until 1996 and in its military operations since the Taliban forced the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani from Kabul.

As part of its campaign for U.S. support, the alliance now says it has no ambition to rule again or repeat the mistakes of the past.

“The United Front does not wish to impose itself on the people of Afghanistan, to split our territory for the sake of imposing ourselves in Kabul again,” said Amin, who was born in Kabul in 1969 but fled the country after the 1979 Soviet invasion. He attended Pasadena City College and UC Riverside. Since 1988, he has returned twice to Afghanistan to work with the alliance. His parents live in Sherman Oaks.

The alliance is exploring the establishment of a coalition government under Mohammed Zahir Shah, the 86-year-old former monarch exiled since 1973 in Italy.

“Our aim is to go with an uprising in southern parts of Afghanistan, to join [local] commanders that are favorable to a free Afghanistan, to move over and give support to the former monarch in Afghanistan so that he can come as a unifying figurehead. There are Pashtuns that want to cooperate with us,” said Amin, who also is an accredited diplomat at the United Nations, where the Rabbani government still holds the Afghan seat.

Indeed, the gravest danger to the U.S., Amin warned, is not having a long-term political objective in Afghanistan to accompany its military actions.

“You can go ahead and hunt down Osama bin Laden--and roll back the Taliban. 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 neighbors 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 Sept. 11,” Amin said.

On the political side, Zahir Shah met with a visiting U.S. congressional delegation near Rome on Sunday. Zahir Shah said he was prepared to return to Afghanistan to form a unity government that would pave the way to eventual free and fair elections. He said he is negotiating with the Northern Alliance.

But U.S. military analysts caution that the alliance would need a large infusion of equipment and training--and time to get both--to achieve its goals. At the moment, Afghanistan’s civil strife is part guerrilla war and part World War I-style fighting, with small arms and vintage equipment; its air fleet is only two helicopters, plus one that works only half the time.

U.S. officials also say the alliance controls only about 5% of Afghanistan, a country the size of Texas, although Amin claims it holds at least 15% of the rugged mountainous territory.

Backing the alliance also would enter the U.S. into an unusual pact with other foreign sponsors: Iran, Russia and India. Iran is the main source of military support, while India provides financial aid and Russia sells the alliance arms at discounted prices, Amin said.

But the alliance’s new Washington lobbyist argues that the U.S. must work with “moderate elements” to ensure the elimination not only of Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, but of terrorism as well.