Afghanistan's Taliban regime is weakened by low morale and some of its fighters are fleeing or defecting, defectors who crossed over to the Northern Alliance said Thursday.
"They say their morale is high but it isn't. Fighters are running away to Pakistan or Iran, or joining" the Northern Alliance, said 30-year-old Abdul Ghafur, who defected four days ago.
Ghafur and nine other Taliban defectors spoke to reporters at this rebel stronghold near the front line north of Kabul. Seven of the 10 were ethnic Tajiks, not representatives of the Pashtun tribe who are the largest group among Afghanistan's 21 million people and most of the Taliban, and their claims could not be independently verified.
Northern Alliance officials have claimed that about 5,200 Taliban fighters have defected in recent days in a sign the hard-line Islamic militia is faltering under the US assaults -- an assertion the Taliban has denied.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday a campaign of US airborne broadcasts and leaflet drops inside Afghanistan was scoring successes in encouraging Taliban fighters to defect or surrender.
"The hope is that those Taliban people will in fact move over and support the Northern Alliance and the tribes in the south," Rumsfeld said in a CNN interview. "That is something that is taking place as we speak."
But the Taliban ambassador to neighboring Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, denied the reports of defections and said morale was high.
"Until there is one Talib alive in Afghanistan, America cannot defeat us," he told reporters Thursday in the Pakistani border town of Chaman. "Our morale is high and we will never bow to unjust demands of any power."
But the 10 defectors who spoke to reporters described a Taliban regime weakened by low morale and a fighting force eager to defect.
Ghafur said Taliban fighters were sleeping in the homes of civilians to escape the American airstrikes.
He said Taliban commanders rejoiced after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the US. He and other Taliban troops were told to "fight to the last drop of blood" after America began its retaliatory strikes, said Ghafur.
Mohammed Ismael, 35, said he and the others defected because they were fed up with Taliban policies, not because they were afraid of the US bombing.
"If you give an Afghan a machine gun and tell him to fight, he will never worry about dying. He will die to defend Afghanistan," said Ismael, holding a rocket launcher.
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