The West at War: Bio-Terror: PUTIN GIVES TANKS

RUSSIAN tanks are to roll into Afghanistan again for the first time in 20 years - but this time being driven by anti- Taliban forces.

Northern Alliance troops are to get 40 tanks and more than 100 armoured vehicles, worth more than pounds 30million from Premier Vladimir Putin, it was revealed in Moscow yesterday.

But the armoured vehicles will come out of storage and not be newly- off the production line.

Russia has supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban since it was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988.

The military hardware can be driven by road from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic whose border with Afghanistan is still patrolled by Russian troops.

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