Taliban Foes Vow to Fight Until End

Hours before U.S. bombs and missiles began raining on Afghanistan, anti-Taliban forces at Bagram air base were readying for a long fight with their enemy, vowing they were willing to die for their cause.

Officials of the opposition Northern Alliance said they plan an attack on several fronts once the U.S. air campaign is over. But they also spoke of their fears of heavy casualties, both military and civilian.

Above a fortified earthen bunker about 400 yards from Taliban positions, automatic weapons fire rang out in the evening air. It was a prelude to a storm of fire that in fact erupted just after 9:20 p.m. following U.S. airstrikes on Afghan cities.

In these pre-attack hours, a bullet whistled by and hit a cement wall not far from the forward post, the position closest to the Taliban lines.

“Have a look out there,” urged Havani, 28, a colonel in the opposition Northern Alliance and a seasoned moujahedeen.

“If you look long enough, they’ll shoot you right in the middle of the forehead,” he said, laughing and jabbing his finger toward the Taliban positions.

“Snipers,” he explained.

On the long walk through exposed territory across the runway to the forward post, Havani had warned of possible gunfire.

“If they start shooting, dive into that trench,” he said, indicating a shallow, narrow ditch about 10 yards away.

Havani pointed to the memorial of a commander killed while praying a few weeks ago. Another soldier had been shot in the stomach only hours earlier. He was taken in critical condition to an emergency hospital in the Panjshir Valley.

The Bagram airport technically is controlled by the opposition but is right on the front line. Its tarmac is littered with aircraft shattered by fighting.

The atmosphere was tense as young Northern Alliance soldiers said they would be happy to sacrifice their lives in the coming battle to overrun the nearest Taliban village, about 400 yards away.

Havani outlined plans to storm the village and said he expected heavy casualties on his side.

“We’ll open fire from here. It will be suppressing and supportive fire, and the infantry soldiers will storm their positions, supported by artillery and tanks,” he said.

“But they have tanks on that side too. There will be a lot of casualties on our side. Of course, those who are attacking always bear more casualties.”

Havani too said he was “ready to die for the sake of freedom and for the sake of my country.”

Wahid, a 22-year-old fighter under Havani, said he expected an enormous fight ahead.

“There is going to be a big change in this war. Now the Taliban will be destroyed by the Americans. The Taliban and terrorists will be wiped out,” he said.

Behind the front line, moujahedeen with Kalashnikov assault rifles on their shoulders whizzed around on bicycles, the speediest and safest means of providing logistical support--ammunition, bread and water--to the fighters.

On the outskirts of Bagram, local people crowded around foreigners, begging for information about when the bombing would start.

Meanwhile, Northern Alliance officials outlined plans for a major attack after the U.S. air campaign.

Generals said there would be about a week of airstrikes against targets around the capital, Kabul, nearby Jalalabad and the southern city of Kandahar.

The Northern Alliance foreign minister, Abdullah, said shortly before the start of the airstrikes that he had received information from American sources that the strikes were about to begin.

“An attack is imminent. It will take place very soon. It will involve air bombardment and rocketing of the Taliban,” Abdullah said. “Our people are in constant contact with the Americans.”

Indeed, airspace was closed in northern Afghanistan to clear the way for U.S. reconnaissance planes.

“The program is they will be bombing for a week. Then they [U.S. commanders] will assess the damage [and] monitor troop and hardware movements. Then they’ll sum up the results of the operation, and they order us to attack,” another senior Northern Alliance official said earlier Sunday. “I was told overnight that it’s a matter of a day or two, according to the signals they’re giving us.”

The Northern Alliance moved a group of its commanders into Jabal os Saraj, just south of the Panjshir Valley, on Sunday. Commanders in the region and other officials had met late Saturday to finalize their plans.

“We were told before we had a week to wait. Now they’re telling us it could happen any time,” said Gen. Abdul Basir, 36, commander of forces in the Salang Gorge.

“We are counting the minutes and seconds,” said Gen. Del Agha Salangi, also 36. “When flies fly around, we hope it’s not flies we see, but planes.”

In recent days, there has been a marked change in the rhetoric of Northern Alliance officials, who a week ago were expressing confidence that they could easily crush Taliban resistance and forge into Kabul. Now they are talking about drawn-out battles against tough, fanatical fighters.

There were contradictory signals Sunday about plans to storm the capital. Abdullah said it was not the alliance’s main target.

“Kabul is not the priority for us. The priority is to eradicate terrorism from Afghanistan, its bases and those who harbor terrorists,” he said. But later he spoke about pushing forward to Kabul.

Still, he said: “Going to Kabul is one thing. Moving troops into Kabul is another.” He said targets around Kabul include air bases and fuel and ammunition depots.

Abdullah also said the Northern Alliance had expressed to U.S. officials its fears about the fate of civilians in Kabul.

“That’s difficult, that’s very difficult. You’re talking about more than a million people,” he said.

Another front-line commander, Gen. Bobojan, commander of the forces at Bagram airport, said that Kabul was important but that there would also be attacks elsewhere.

He said the Taliban’s defenses would crumble more quickly if the U.S. continued pressure on Pakistan not to support the Taliban.

Bobojan said the regime was on alert, had added a second front line and had nearly 5,000 troops deployed in the area south of Bagram.

“We have Arabs on the front line here. We have information that they beefed up their front-line positions with more personnel and hardware,” he said.

Abdullah admitted that the Taliban might launch an offensive on the opposition once the U.S. campaign began.

“Some people in the Taliban might think that’s a good idea once the strikes start,” he said. “But they’re losing control of the situation every hour as the strikes near.”

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Special correspondent Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.