A Taliban minister on Tuesday criticised Afghanistan's neighbours for letting the United States use bases in their countries for the US-led anti-terrorism war.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the education minister and main Taliban spokesman, said Tajikistan and other neighbours would face "Islamic and national" pressure to stop American forces using the bases. "They should not cooperate with them," Muttaqi said in a statement on the US bases in the central Asian states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the north of Afghanistan.

"The Americans have been greedily trying to get bases in Tajikistan, but our neighbours will not cooperate with them for a long time. They will face pressures from Islamic and national interests for giving Americans air bases," he said.

Uzbekistan, like Pakistan to the south, is letting US troops run search and rescue and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan from its territory.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in Tashkent at the weekend and there is speculation that Washington may want to run combat operations from Uzbekistan. Unofficial sources say the United States has more than 2,000 combat-ready troops stationed at the Khanabad military base in southern Uzbekistan, near the Afghan border. Bureau Report