(21 Sep 2001)

1. Aerial of northern Afghanistan mountains
2. Pilot in the cockpit of Northern Alliance Afghan helicopter
3. Troops on the frontline (Northern Alliance - opposition)
4. AI Hanum fortified position (hill) overlooking Taliban positions
5. Various of hill positions
6. Various of fighters
7. SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) General Abdull Ghfoor, Northern Alliance Opposition "We are fighting the Taliban and if the U.S find the root of terrorism we will cooperate we them. The result of this operation will be good."
8. Tanks
9. Person looking through binoculars at Taliban positions
10. Tank fires at Taliban position

STORYLINE:

Opposition commanders in Afghanistan have welcomed U-S efforts to strike at terrorism and their chief enemy, the Taliban, but warned against attempts to encroach on their independence.

The booms of automatic cannons rumbled in the background on Friday as a group of opposition fighters faced down the Taliban from their frontline, a parched slope carved with trenches near the village of Khojabahaodin in northern Afghanistan.

The opposition has been fighting the Taliban for years and has been squeezed into just five per cent of Afghan territory.

The opposition alliance has been encouraged by U-S threats to strike against Afghanistan for harbouring Osama bin Laden, the key suspect in terror attacks on the United States last week.

General Abdull Ghfoor, the chief of the alliance's forces in the region, said: "The northern alliance condemns international terrorism and is prepared for cooperation with the United States, but we will never give up our independence."

He spoke from a hill overlooking a river valley and Taliban-held mountaintops seven kilometres (four miles) away.

Fighters, mostly young Muslim men, milled about carrying Kalashnikov's rifles, condemning the attacks on the United States.

Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency said on Friday that troops under opposition commander Rashid Dostum were re-grouping around the city of Mazar-i-Sharif for a new attack on the Taliban, possibly aimed at capturing bin Laden.

The report, citing unnamed sources, claimed up to 15-thousand opposition fighters were gathering in the area, although the report couldn't be verified.

The opposition alliance suffered a major loss when its chief commander, Ahmed Shah Massood, was killed in a terrorist attack last week.

His replacement, General Mohammed Fahim, was to arrive in Tajikistan on Friday or Saturday to discuss the military and political situation in the region, an Afghan opposition envoy said.

Tajikistan, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, has been a focus of attention as the United States considers how to respond to last week's terrorist attacks.

In Kabul on Friday, Taliban rulers defied U-S demands to turn over bin Laden, insisting there was no evidence that he was behind the attacks.

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