  A two-dimensional fracture model where the interaction among elements is
modeled by an anisotropic stress-transfer function is presented. The influence
of anisotropy on the macroscopic properties of the samples is clarified, by
interpolating between several limiting cases of load sharing. Furthermore, the
critical stress and the distribution of failure avalanches are obtained
numerically for different values of the anisotropy parameter $\alpha$ and as a
function of the interaction exponent $\gamma$. From numerical results, one can
certainly conclude that the anisotropy does not change the crossover point
$\gamma_c=2$ in 2D. Hence, in the limit of infinite system size, the crossover
value $\gamma_c=2$ between local and global load sharing is the same as the one
obtained in the isotropic case. In the case of finite systems, however, for
$\gamma\le2$, the global load sharing behavior is approached very slowly.
