Taliban say they will not be easily beaten

Four weeks into the US led air campaign, the Taliban say they won’t be easily defeated - and not because they are a sophisticated adversary. Quite the opposite.

‘‘We don’t have anything for the American bombs to destroy,’’ said Amir Khan Muttaqi, education minister and spokesman for the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

‘‘We are not a country with a sophisticated computer system, a big, important telecommunications system or modern aviation system to destroy,’’ he said. ‘‘In Afghanistan we have no infrastructure for the bombs to destroy and cause our country to collapse.’’

Muttaqi spoke in his stark Kabul office, with a Kalashnikov rifle on the table in front of him. He was accompanied by two Taliban guards, each with their rifles in their hands.

‘‘Each Afghan has rifle in his home and each Afghan’s home is his bunker,’’ Muttaqi said.

Ravaged by more than two decades of war, Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries, where the annual per capita income in a good year is barely £140.

Before the September 11 terrorist assault on the United States and the retaliatory air strikes that began on October 7, the United Nations was calling Afghanistan a humanitarian crisis - perhaps the world’s worst.

President Bush launched the air assaults after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, who the Americans blame for the terror attacks.

Kabul, the capital, lies largely in ruins, destroyed by an earlier civil war. The estimated one million people who call it home are mostly those Afghans who are too poor to flee.

‘‘The educated, the people with money, everyone is gone,’’ said Wali, a young student, who was also planning to try to get to Pakistan, despite the sealed borders.

‘‘Most of the people who are here, believe me, cannot even afford the bus fare to leave,’’ he said.

There are an estimated 25,000 widows in Kabul, and on the rocket-rutted streets of the city it is not uncommon to see women in burqas, their hands outstretched pleading for money to feed their children, often at their side.

While the Taliban and the Pentagon disagree over casualty figures, it seems the nightly air raids have destroyed most of Afghanistan’s major airports in Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Herat.

However, the impact is difficult to assess.

Before the US-British air campaign, the Taliban’s national airlines was unable to make international flights because of UN sanctions, which had also made it difficult to maintain its aging Russian fleet of Antonov aircraft and its two Boeing jets.

The Taliban’s military air power were aging Russian MiG fighters. It’s not known how many have been destroyed in the air campaign. And so far the front lines have remained unchanged.

The Taliban’s command and control centres are mostly turbaned men with hand-held radios. At the front line , Taliban orders to their troops are easily intercepted by the opposition, who routinely say they talk back and forth to their Taliban foes.

Muttaqi, who was also the Taliban’s point man in UN sponsored negotiations with the northern alliance last year, warned that the relentless air raids over Afghanistan will turn Muslims worldwide against the United States.

‘‘America should not oblige thousands and thousands of Muslims the world over to feel for the victims of the bombing because they will cause more trouble for America,’’ he said.

Afghans do not want to fight with America, Muttaqi said.

‘‘That’s the message for Americans,’’ he said. ‘‘We do not want to fight. We will negotiate. But talk to us like a sovereign country. We are not a province of the United States, to be issued orders to. We have asked for proof of Osama’s involvement, but they have refused. Why?’’

The US administration says it has plenty of evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the September 11 attacks against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. It says it will not negotiate.

‘America, what do you want to do?’’ he asked. ‘‘Don’t make Muslims everywhere angry. Muslims have no problem with Americans. It is American policy they disagree with.’’