http://www.boston.com/dailynews/269/world/Pakistan_warns_U_S_against_tak:.shtml

Pakistan warns U.S. against taking sides in Afghanistan

By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press, 9/26/2001 08:18

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) Pakistan is warning the United States and its allies in the anti-terrorism coalition against taking sides in the Afghanistan conflict following Russian and Western contacts with the northern alliance seeking to overthrow the Taliban.

''We are concerned to read news that Afghan groups are asking for foreign military assistance,'' Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said Tuesday at a press conference with a European Union delegation.

''The Northern Alliance has said so, and we fear any such decision on the part of a foreign power to give assistance to one side or the other is a recipe for great suffering for the people of Afghanistan,'' he added.

An alliance of anti-Taliban groups is battling the Islamic hard-liners in northern Afghanistan and has offered to help the United States. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would expand its assistance to the northern alliance ''in the form of the supply of weapons and military equipment.''

President Bush has identified Afghanistan-based Osama bin Laden as the likely mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and has demanded that the ruling Taliban hand him over. The Taliban have refused.

That has raised speculation that the Americans may seek to overthrow the Taliban if the hard-line Islamic militia refuse to severe their ties with bin Laden and his terrorist al-Qaida movement.

Pakistan, a key partner in the anti-terrorist alliance, has maintained close ties to the Taliban for years and is the only country that currently recognizes the movement as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

''I think it is very important for the world at large to understand Afghanistan,'' Sattar said. ''The people of Afghanistan are fiercely protective of their independence. They have never acquiesced to a proxy government imposed on them from the outside.''

The question of the northern alliance's role has emerged as the United States and Pakistan negotiate a plan for Pakistani cooperation in the anti-terrorist campaign and in possible military operations in Afghanistan.

Apparently seeking to avoid problems with a key partner, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell downplayed speculation that toppling the Taliban is a U.S. goal.

''It is not the president's goal to determine how the Afghan people will be governed or led,'' Powell told The Associated Press in an interview. ''It is to get al-Qaida the leaders of al-Qaida in Afghanistan.''

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001