``Large-Scale Ground Offensive Is to Launch within 2-3 Weeks``

Sunday Times reported yesterday that British and the U.S. forces are about to mount the first significant ground offensive of the war in Afghanistan by mobilizing thousands of troops within 2-3 weeks.

Sunday Times reported that Royal Marines and British special forces along with the U.S. 10th Mountain Division plan to secure a corridor by driving out Taliban forces between the Uzbek border and positions near the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Sunday Times said that the aim of securing of a corridor is to continue the operation during the severe winter instead of establishing fixed military bases that proved vulnerable to attack during the decade of Soviet occupation. However, officials in London and Washington anticipate casualties from ground combat across miles of plains and mountains.

The Observer reported that the U.S. sent a team of seven U.S. advisers in Afghanistan, and the operation is to be run through a partly finished airstrip at Gulbahar, 38 miles north of Kabul.

Meanwhile, in relation to the operation of a large-scale ground offensive, the U.S. President George W. Busy reconfirmed that the U.S. would not stop the war against terrorism even during the Ramadan (one month beginning on 17th).

Foreign Press reported that the U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is traveling Central Asia, held a meeting with Tajikistan President Imamali Rakhmonov on Saturday and tentatively agreed to use three air force bases nearby Afghanistan.

The U.S. evaluation team plans to select a new base arriving in Tajikistan on Sunday. It seems that Tajikistan would receive tens of millions of aid funds from the U.S. for providing the air force bases to the U.S. The Taliban made clear that it would resist against the continuing U.S. attacks saying that ``we will combat during the Ramadan.``

lailai@donga.com