Northern Alliance 'ready for major assault'

Afghanistan's Northern Alliance is preparing for a major offensive against the Taliban during the allied bombardment.

Touryali Ghiasii, a top aide to slain Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massood, said the militia's latest campaign could begin as early as tomorrow.

He gave no details of the immediate military objectives of the Alliance, which holds about 10% of Afghanistan.

Ghiasii said: "We are in a state of absolute readiness. We are preparing to move."

Massood was fatally wounded in a September 9 suicide attack by assassins posing as journalists. Alliance leaders claim he was killed on orders of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

The US air strikes also seek to destroy facilities linked to bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.

Ghiasii said most Taliban offices and military sites are not near populated areas "so we don't expect many civilian casualties".

He added that his information indicates the Taliban ministries for defence, information and interior were destroyed in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The key Darulaman military base west of the city was also hit, he said.

In the northern Kondoos province, an ammunition dump exploded in a huge fireball after apparently being hit by US rockets.

Afghanistan has been in almost constant conflict since the 1979 invasion of Soviet forces. US-backed guerrillas who drove out the Soviets after a decade-long war eventually formed the power base for the Taliban, which seized control of Kabul in 1996.