WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, 6 November— Afghanistan’s Taleban regime said yesterday it was ready for decades of war as it fought a new opposition drive, backed by "cowardly" US airstrikes, toward the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. At the same time, the military commander of the opposition forces said his troops were ready to march on the capital Kabul, although on the ground the anti-Taleban army looked far from ready for a major push.

And while the United States pressed its nearly month-old air offensive, there were few signs of progress in its drive to root out the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. "We are ready for a long war and we hope to defeat the United States, which the rest of world calls a superpower," Taleban Education Minister and spokesman Amir Khan Muttaqi told reporters here. "The US should revise its wrong, terrorist policies, otherwise this war, which may last for decades, will burn many Americans and Afghans."

Fighting has raged in north-central Afghanistan where rebels of the Northern Alliance were trying to move toward Mazar-e-Sharif, potentially a key supply and staging area in their fight against the Taleban militia. Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taleban ambassador to Pakistan, said the militia had turned back a "severe offensive" in three districts south of Mazar-e-Sharif. He said that 30-35 opposition troops died in the battle, with 10 civilians killed and 15 wounded by US bombs dropped in support of the campaign.

The opposition claimed Saturday to have taken one of the districts, Aq-Kupruk, located 70 kilometers south of Mazar-e-Sharif. But it said the Taleban later reclaimed a part of the district. Muhammad Ashraf Nadeem, an opposition spokesman close to the front lines, confirmed that their offensive had been halted but said it was to avoid the US bombs. He said the attack was soon renewed.

"If we take these districts, we can move to take Shebarghan (a town to the west of Mazar-e-Sharif) and then we’ll be closer to Mazar," Nadeem said. He said the US bombing was virtually nonstop. "I haven’t seen the bombs stop falling for more than 10 minutes since yesterday morning."

The districts south of Mazar-e-Sharif are one of three front-line areas targeted by the Americans in their drive to topple the Taleban for harboring Osama Bin Laden, wanted for the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.

US B-52 bombers and strike aircraft also have been pounding Taleban positions in northeastern Afghanistan where the Northern Alliance are fighting for control of supply routes into neighboring Tajikistan ahead of winter. American planes have also hit at Taleban forces dug in about 50 kilometers north of Kabul.

"The Americans tried to destroy our airfields and radar systems thinking that our system in Afghanistan is also computerized, but our main strength, our fighters, are untouched," Muttaqi said. "They have been attacking from the air but in our tradition we call that a cowardly war."

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a tour of the region, said Sunday the campaign was making "measurable progress." But it continued to be dogged by reports of civilian casualties from the bombings. Taleban officials and the Pakistani-based AIP said at least 36 civilians were killed early yesterday. The Taleban said 18 people were killed in Aq-Kupruk while AIP said six died in one house in nearby Keshendeh town.

A mini-summit of European leaders Sunday night in London produced "absolute solidarity," British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said, but opinion polls showed public support for the US campaign continued to erode. In France, 51 percent approved of the military action compared to 66 percent in mid-October, support in Britain declined from 74 percent to 62 percent and the last survey published in Germany showed more than two thirds want an end to the bombing.

In Spain, 69 percent said the US raids should stop, while support in Poland, one of NATO’s first eastern European members, dropped in one month from 58 percent to 28 percent. Even in the United States, approval for the airstrikes fell by six points in two weeks to 72 percent, according to a Newsweek poll.