ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Officials of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Saturday threatened to attack Uzbekistan if it allowed U.S. forces to attack Afghanistan from Uzbek territory, Taliban-run radio reported.
``We will attack Uzbekistan if any attack is launched from its borders,'' Radio Voice of Shariat quoted officials as telling a rally in Hairaton, near the Uzbek border.
The broadcast was monitored by Reuters in Pakistan.
Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov on Friday told visiting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld he would make an air base available for use by U.S. cargo planes, helicopters and troops, but only for humanitarian and rescue operations.
Some 1,000 soldiers of the U.S. army's 10th Mountain Division have been sent to Uzbekistan, on an unprecedented deployment of American forces in a former Soviet republic.
The country is ideally placed as a base for any U.S. operation in Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban are sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man Washington blames for last month's attacks on the United States. (Read photo caption)
Analysts in Washington expect U.S. strategy to include missions by special forces inside Afghanistan, and say Karimov's insistence that Uzbekistan will not be the springboard for such attacks poses problems for military planners.
But they said the definition of ``humanitarian'' and ``rescue'' operations might be quietly broadened with Tashkent's consent.
The former Soviet republic was the jumping-off point for the ill-fated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
MAP CAPTION:
Uzbekistan is ideally placed as a base for any U.S. operation in Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban are sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man Washington blames for last month's attacks on the United States.