New Afghan leaders court India

Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah is set to visit India

NEW DELHI, India -- Afghanistan's new leaders are beating a path to New Delhi in a bid to shore up support for their interim government.

Northern Alliance leaders now playing a key role in the interim administration have all visited New Delhi, or are planning to visit the capital, on their first official trips.

They include Interior Minister Yunis Qanuni, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim.

Experts say these new leaders are concerned about how Pakistan will treat them and they are trying to firm up a network of foreign support, including India, the United States and Russia.

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For years, nuclear-capable rivals India and Pakistan backed opposing forces in Afghanistan.

New Delhi stood behind the Northern Alliance while Islamabad threw its support behind the now defeated Taliban.

Although Islamabad cut its links with the Taliban after Washington launched its war on terrorism, analysts have told Reuters news agency that the Alliance are deeply suspicious.

Meanwhile, the Alliance's jaunts to Indian have already stirred rumblings in Islamabad.

The Northern Alliance picked up key positions in the six-month interim government formed by Afghan factions at talks in Germany last month, following the Taliban's fall.

Power game

India has accused Pakistan of supporting separatists in Kashmir

As well as providing potential protection for the Alliance and its partners, strong ties between India and Afghanistan are also part of a wider regional power game between New Delhi and Islamabad, both trying to expand their influence.

Already, Aghan interior minister Qanuni has spoken out against outside interference in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, where India accuses Pakistan of promoting separatists, a charge Islamabad denies.

India, for its part, has been swift to show its support for the new Afghanistan.

It has sent in food and medical aid, opened a representative office and is set to become the first commercial international air link with the war-torn nation.

But Islamabad is not giving up without a fight, commentator Chidanand Rajghatta wrote in Wednesday's The Times of India.

"As deftly as it ditched the Taliban, Pakistan is now cottoned on to the newly chosen ... leader Hamid Karzai, hoping to arrest Kabul's tilt towards India.

Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun leader, is not a member of the Northern Alliance. However, he has his own links with India, dating from his studies at a university in the country's north.

But analysts tell Reuters it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the long-term Afghanistan-India-Pakistan relationship.

The interim administration is due to rule for only six months from December 22 until a Loya Jirga, a traditional assembly of elders, meets to form a new transitional government to guide Afghanistan over the following two years.

And there are doubts, too, about the reaction at home of Muslim Afghanistan to getting too close to Hindu-majority India.

India is home to some 30,000 Afghan refugees who fled Taliban rule.