U.S. prepares for post-Taliban Afghanistan

Although US military forces are massing in the region the Bush administration is working on a broad political strategy

From CNN State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel and Producer Elise Labott

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration is preparing to intensify efforts to persuade the Afghan people that any U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan is not aimed at the average Afghan citizen, a senior administration source has told CNN.

In addition to deploying forces for a possible military campaign, the administration is working on what officials call a broad strategy aimed not only at getting rid of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, but preparing Afghanistan for a future without the Taliban.

As part of the U.S. information offensive officials are looking to make use of regional radio and television broadcasts such as the Voice of America (VOA) or local radio stations in Pakistan.

Also being explored is the possibility of enlisting the help of the Qatar-based Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera.

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The Emir of Qatar, whose government finances al-Jazeera, is expected to meet Secretary of State Colin Powell later this week with broadcasts on al-Jazeera high on Powell's agenda, the source said.

The planned broadcast effort is aimed at sending a number of messages:

- Any U.S. action against terrorism isn't an attack against Islam or Muslims.

- The brand of Islam practiced by bin Laden and his followers is an "aberration" from mainstream Islam.

- The United States is one of the biggest aid donors to Afghanistan.

- The United States understands the great majority of Afghan people are not harboring bin Laden.

New government

Meanwhile administration sources are also shedding more light on the evolving U.S. strategy to replace the Taliban with what officials say would be a more broad based, representative Afghan government.

Intelligence sources say many within the ruling Taliban regime are already deserting with one official estimating that 400-500 out of 6,000 Taliban based around the capital, Kabul, have fled.

The U.S. plan is to have a "transitional apparatus" at the ready "to move in" should the Taliban fracture.

Officials and Afghan sources tell CNN the deposed Afghan king has offered his "good offices" and is expected to act as a "lightning rod" to help bring the Afghan opposition together, including all tribes and ethnic groups as well as moderate members of the Taliban and Northern Alliance. "We're not choosing factions and we're not choosing individuals and we're not choosing particular methods," the senior State Department official said.

But he added that a multi-ethnic, multi-tribal grand council was the "most common idea around."

Administration officials say they are in contact with a variety of what they call "Afghan nationalists".

These include ethnic, religious and political Afghan groups in the country and among Afghan exiles.

Among them are moderate members of the Taliban regime and a number of Afghan opposition groups.

The most widely known group is the Northern Alliance, an armed and battle-hardened anti-Taliban force that controls approximately five percent of Afghanistan, primarily in the northeast.

Isolating terrorists

The administration is also working with two other main Afghan coalitions, one in Rome led by the former Afghan king and his supporters and another in Cyprus that includes exiled Afghan intellectuals, former congressmen, ministers and university professors.

Representatives from the Northern Alliance and the king's faction said they have reached agreement to establish a joint government in Kabul.

Quadir Amiryar, a professor at George Washington University and member of the Cyprus group, told CNN the "whole social political fabric of Afghanistan will be represented in this administration."

The hope, one official said, is a new government would isolate the terrorist groups within the country and "make them more targetable" for a military operation.

Administration officials tell CNN the United States wants to use the former Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, as a "rallying force" to bring these groups, in Afghanistan and around the world, together.

Over the weekend a congressional delegation met with the exiled king in Rome who told them he was "ready willing and able" to lead an interim government in Afghanistan.

Reconstruction

The expectation would be to have a UN-supervised transitional authority or government move in to Kabul if the Taliban fracture, perhaps even before bin Laden and the al Qaeda network have been rounded up.

There might also be UN troops, comprised mostly if not completely of Muslims, to protect Kabul.

Eventually the massive project to reconstruct Afghanistan's shattered infrastructure and economy would begin.

Early estimates by the State Department put the cost of the process at $1 billion a year.

One source cautioned that the international community will have to watch the Northern Alliance to make sure that if the Taliban are removed, the alliance doesn't move in to fill the void itself.

Officials admit the central player in all of these plans will be Pakistan, which will have to sign off on any new government.

In order to make sure this happens, sources say they will try to keep Pakistan involved in the reconstruction work to ensure that any new government will be friendly to Pakistan.

Publicly, the Bush administration has said it would not force a change in government in Afghanistan but would support a Loya Jirga, or grand council, to replace the Taliban militia, said a senior State Department official.

"We would certainly support it if that's what the Afghan factions wanted to do," one official said.