KARACHI (ANI) --Despite the best efforts of its military and intelligence apparatus and political manipulation in Pakistan, the U.S. and its allies have failed to break the Taliban and Al Qaida in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the resistance movement in Afghanistan has fully reorganised itself, even setting up offices, and despite official claims to the contrary, American forces are fighting in the dark.

In an audiotape sent to the Pakistan daily The News, widely accepted as authentic, Taliban leader Mullah Omar has urged Muslims to step up their jehad against the U.S. and other coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Omar issued the tape from his hiding place in Afghanistan, the daily reported, quoting Taliban spokesman Mohammad Mukhtar Mujahid. Omar has named a 10-member leadership council to organise the resistance against the U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan.

"Mullah Omar called upon the Taliban to offer sacrifices for evicting the American and allied soldiers from Afghanistan and fighting the puppet regime of (President) Hamid Karzai," Mujahid said.

The 10 men identified by Omar as members of the Rahbari Shura (leadership council) include former Taliban military commanders, mostly veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet occupation of 1979-1989.

Taliban military commander Jalaluddin Haqqani is on the council, which is made up of commanders hailing from Kandahar, Helmand and other southwestern provinces where the Taliban originally emerged in 1994, Omar said.

Two of the council members, Akhtar Mohammad Usmani, a confidante of Mullah Omar and the one-legged former intelligence chief Mullah Dadullah, are also names that appear on the Afghan government's wanted list that was given by Karzai to Pakistani authorities during his visit in April.

Investigations carried out by Asia Times Online reveal the following:

-- The resistance movement has been named Saiful Muslameen (Sword of Muslims).

-- The central office is located in Asadabad, near the Pakistani border, while several training camps have been established in Parachinar and Miran Shah (both in Pakistan) and other places. These are mobile camps that can be moved quickly according to required needs.

-- The main military committee is headed by Mullah Omar, supported by his commanders, including Mullah Dadullah and Ahktar Usmani.

-- Under Saiful Muslameen, Afghanistan has been divided into five operational zones.

-- The zone commanders include famed Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, leader of the Hizb-i-Islami, in Kunhar, Jalalabad, Kabul, Logar and Gazni. Khost and Paktia and Paktika are under the command of Maulana Jalaludin Haqqani, while Gardez is under the control of Mullah Saifullah Mansoor. The appointments of two more war zone commanders had not been made at the time this article was written. These zones include Kandahar, Urugzan and Zabul.

These is also another force in play.

An organization called the Khuddamul Furqan (Servants of the Holy Koran) was established soon after the Taliban retreated without offering more than token resistance in the face of advancing Northern Alliance troops in early 2002, largely on the advice of some former officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The Khuddamul Furqan's leadership was based in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar and they announced their separation from the Taliban over Mullah Omar's policy to harbour Osama bin Laden.

Pakistani elements then helped them to contact the new Afghan government with a view to being inducted into the provisional administration in Kabul.

But since Northern Alliance would have none of it, the leaders of the organisation have been biding their time ever since. Now, they have thrown in their lot with the resistance movement, establishing their own pocket of resistance.

Recent large-scale US operations in Afghanistan, backed by Pakistani troops in Pakistan's tribal areas, have failed to produce any significant results other than provoke controversy in the tribal areas, where the country's regular army has not ventured for 100 years.

This is despite the arrests of several key people in the terror networks, whom it was claimed would be able to point the U.S. troops in the right direction for more arrests, including those of Mullah Omar and bin Laden.

The truth is that U.S. intelligence does not really know what is going on in the Taliban and Al Qaida camps. This is evidenced by the countless raids that have been launched in recent times, none of which have resulted in the capture of anyone in Afghanistan.

In an effort to find a breakthrough, U.S. authorities recently made two initiatives involving the Taliban.

In the first, they tried to establish a new Taliban leadership through Mullah Ghous and other Taliban leaders who were expelled during Taliban rule from 1996-2001. This failed virtually before it was born.

A second attempt was then made to forge contacts with "real" Taliban, with the idea being that they provide any acceptable leadership to take a significant part in the running of the country so that peace could be established. This too was rejected.

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