Alliance chiefs may spurn West for Russian friends

America and Britain now have the problem of winning the support of the Northern Alliance commanders to carry out a successful peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

The Alliance chiefs' tails are high following their sudden victories from Mazar-i-Sharif to Kabul, Herat and Jalalabad.

Many of these commanders believe it was the intervention of the Russians and their allies, more than the American bombing, that helped turn the tide against the Taliban.

Intelligence sources in northern Afghanistan have revealed that the Russians bought at least 50 T-55 or T-62 tanks and at least 30 BMP1 armoured personnel carriers in the Ukraine and shipped them to Alliance forces on the Mazar front through Uzbekistan.

The principal commander on the Mazar front, the Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, was trained by the Soviet forces and he has remained on good terms with the Russians. In addition, the Russians supplied fuel, spares, tank and machine-gun ammunition and a limited amount of artillery ammunition.

They also supplied field officers to draw up fire plans and to control tactical operations on the ground so the Northern Alliance could coordinate their infantry and tank attacks with strafing and bombing by US aircraft. American and British special forces provided advisers and forward aircraft controllers, but these were a few dozen at the most.

The tanks that rolled into Kabul yesterday with jubilant Northern Alliance fighters aboard were in better condition than anything the Alliance could parade a month ago.

They are the symbol of why many Alliance leaders now feel they owe friends in Russia and Ukraine as much or even more than friends in Britain, America and the West.