Battle of Kabul delayed by US row with Pakistan: “A deepening diplomatic rift between Washington and Islamabad has threatened to weaken the American-led campaign against Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. American use of Pakistani military bases and airspace is in jeopardy after President Pervez Musharraf objected to any decisive US military support for the Northern Alliance, the rebel group preparing to strike at Kabul.”

And: Taliban troops prepare for underground fight : “Afghanistan’s leading cave-fighting veteran from its 1980s war with the Soviet Union has been appointed head of the Taliban army. The move raises the prospect of British and American soldiers having to fight in the country’s labyrinth of tunnels and mountain caverns if they mount an invasion to find Osama Bin Laden… Allied forces, however, are likely to be far better equipped than the Russians were to beat Haqani’s veterans.” Sunday Times of London