ROME (AP) — Afghanistan's former king supports U.S. military action in his homeland and would welcome foreign assistance to help Afghan forces dislodge the country's hard-line Taliban rulers, his son, Prince Mirwais Zahir, said Thursday.

Despite concern that innocent Afghan lives might be lost in a U.S. strike in search of terror suspect Osama bin Laden, "the sooner they attack, the better it is," the 40-year-old son of King Mohammad Zahir Shah said in an interview.

However, he stressed that Afghans must be part of any solution that toppled the Taliban. "We're very proud people," he said. "We have to do it in a way that we are both satisfied."

Washington has warned the Taliban that they risk being targeted if they don't turn over bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In light of that threat and suggestions by President Bush that Afghans rise up against the religious militia, much attention has turned to the 86-year-old king. While Zahir has lived in exile in Italy since his 1973 overthrow, he still commands respect among some Afghans and is seen as perhaps the only person able to unify the country.

Perhaps idealistically, the king himself has expressed a desire to return to Kabul to host a grand assembly of Afghan leaders, intellectuals and elders who would select a transitional government for the country.

But that assumes the Taliban will be ousted from the more than 90 percent of Afghanistan they control — or at least persuaded to negotiate a new government.

In an interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, the king was quoted as saying he would welcome f—o¬ assistance in removing the Taliban altogether.

"Here it concerns friendly troops who have no evil intentions against Afghanistan," he was quoted as saying. "They are trying to help our people liberate themselves from tyranny and terrorism imposed by a foreign power."

While U.S. reinforcement of the opposition Northern Alliance could turn the tables on the Taliban, speculation about the king's role in any transition should be tempered, said Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.

"He's only a player to the degree that people inside the country want him to be a player — not because Bush and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell want him," she said.

"He shouldn't go back riding the U.S. cavalry," she added. "This isn't the Wild West."

For now, the king is holding court at his villa in a high-security gated community north of Rome, where in the coming days he is expected to host members of the Northern Alliance and a U.S. Congressional delegation.

Prince Mirwais, meanwhile, lives nearby and serves as one of his father's aides, while working for an Italian finance company. He will soon marry 33-year-old Leila Amin-Arsala, who is half-Afghan and half-American.