BAGRAM - Afghanistan's opposition pressed the United States to hit harder at Taliban front lines, saying U.S. jets weren't doing enough to clear the way for an opposition advance on major cities. Opposition commanders should be directing the U.S. airstrikes, "on all fronts," their envoy said.

In Islamabad, Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf added to the pressure on Washington to hurry, saying he hoped military operations in Afghanistan would end by mid-November, when the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins. Leaders throughout the Muslim world fear a backlash if attacks continue against Muslim Afghanistan during Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

While saying the U.S.-led campaign should keep going until its objectives are met, Musharraf warned that bombing during Ramadan "would certainly have some negative effects in the Muslim world."

As the military effort to break the Taliban grip on the country intensifies, the brunt of U.S. airstrikes has shifted from military targets in cities to Taliban positions fending off the opposition northern alliance - especially those units around the capital, Kabul, and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

U.S. attacks on Kabul resumed Tuesday, with at least 10 bombs hitting on the city's northern edge, after a one-day break that let U.S. pilots concentrate on front lines.

Since Sunday, U.S. jets have pounded Taliban outposts at the front north of capital, sending plumes of black smoke and dusty over the parched countryside.

Opposition leaders in the north report the same, heavy bombing at the front outside Mazar-e-Sharif.

In Washington, however, a U.S.-based envoy for Afghanistan's opposition insisted the U.S. strikes still weren't enough to let the alliance launch an offensive.

"A lot more of it is needed for us to make ground moves," envoy Haroon Amin said.

Amin called on U.S. forces to coordinate their bombing with opposition commanders - letting opposition fighters call in U.S. strikes within minutes on targets of their choice.

"We want simultaneous coordination on all fronts," Amin said.

Despite their demands on U.S. forces, the opposition's record to date raises strong doubts about how well its poorly armed, poorly trained fighters can take advantage of the U.S. bombardment of their Taliban enemy.

The opposition has been unable to make advances at the Kabul front, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the capital, for years. Taliban fighters there have not yielded ground even under recent days' U.S. air attacks, keeping up mortar fire across the front line.

In northern Afghanistan, opposition forces apparently have failed to make major gains in a more than week-old attempt to capture Mazar-e-Sharif. Seizing the city would cut Taliban supply lines in the north and enable anti-Taliban units to receive weapons and ammunition from Uzbekistan to he north.

On Tuesday, opposition spokesman, Bismillah Khan, reported intense fighting - but no gains - outside Mazar-e-Sharif.

Losing either Mazar-e-Sharif or Kabul would be a major setback for the Taliban, who have refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The United States has been reluctant to allow the opposition to move toward Kabul, however, until Afghan factions had agreed on a broad-based government to replace the Taliban.

Pakistan had been urging the United States to restrain the opposition alliance, arguing that the ethnic minority Tajik and Uzbek-dominated coalition would never be accepted by the Pashtun majority, which forms the core of the Taliban.

Opposition figures also were widely discredited by the brutal infighting which marked their four-year rule. An estimated 50,000 people were killed in Kabul until the Taliban ousted the alliance from the capital in 1996.

However, little progress has been made in forming an alternative, post-Taliban government. More than two weeks of air attacks have also failed to break the Taliban grip on most of the country or prompt any major defections in their ranks.

In Islamabad, Pakistan's president reflected the clear unease among laeders of Muslim nations at the prospect of attacks during Islam's solemn month of prayer and fasting.

"One would hope and wish that this campaign comes to an end before the month of Ramadan, and one would hope for restraint during the month of Ramadan," Musharraf said on CNN's "Larry King Live."


The Taliban regime has made repeated appeals for the sympathy and aid of the Muslim world since the airstrikes started Oct. 7.

On Tuesday, Taliban Information Minister Qatradullah Jamal denounced America as "the enemy of Islam," and renewed claims that U.S. jets were intentionally targeting civilian areas.

The Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency said U.S. bombs hit homes in the western city of Herat on Monday, killing 15 people. A U.S. attack on Kandahar hit the heart of the southern city, killing four people, the news agency said.

The claims could not be independently confirmed.

U.S. leaders repeatedly have insisted the campaign is a war against terrorists, not Islam, and say they are trying to minimize civilian casualties.