It’s been a puzzle to me why the US is keeping up a level of saturation bombing, with Administration statements that the bombardment might even continue through the winter and into the spring, when every strategic target in Afghanistan must already be levelled. Now Debka suggests that, in addition to keeping up a continuous air presence in case we spot “emerging targets” (shorthand for signs of bin Laden), we are doing it to thwart

the secret Russian plan they have got wind of. Our military sources and informants in Moscow reveal that the tanks, the APCs and the self-propelled artillery Moscow gave the forces of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are in fact manned by Russian troops. Altogether three armored brigades of the 201st Russian Motorized Rifle Division are now poised on the outskirts of Kabul, planning to enter the Afghan capital ahead of US forces.

This exercise would repeat the gambit the Russians pulled in the 1999 Kosovo War, when they beat NATO to the draw by taking over Kosovo’s main airport before the alliance had a chance to effect a troop landing there.

By their round-the-clock bombing threat, the Americans hope this time to deter the Russians from jumping in first again.