Emboldened by the advances of anti-Taliban forces in the north, Afghan mujahideen commanders in Pakistan today called on Washington to send them the weapons and vehicles to launch an uprising in the south.
The exiled warlords, who fought the 1979-89 Soviet occupation but were then routed by the fundamentalist Taliban, said at least 10,000 fighters near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar were ready to take up arms.
"Just bombing them (the Taliban) is useless. To achieve anything they need ground forces," said Commander Muhammad Zali, a former mujahid, or holy warrior, who comes from Kandahar.
"We have people over there, between 10,000 and 12,000, who are willing to fight, who are ready to go to war. But we need resources like weapons, rocket launchers and vehicles." Mr Zali, also known as Mohammad Zaliane, and half a dozen other former Afghan military leaders met a Reuterscorrespondent in a suburb of the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. They have been hiding in Pakistan for two years to escape the Taliban.
They say they fought the Russians and then the Taliban under veteran Afghan military leaders such as Ismail Khan and Ahmad Shah Masood, killed by a suicide bomb attack in September.
Their assertions of an anti-Taliban groundswell in Kandahar, powerbase of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, could not be independently confirmed.
Many Afghan refugees fleeing the war-torn nation say that if anything, the US bombing campaign, and the civilian casualties caused, have turned many Afghans in favour of the Taliban.