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October
15, 2001
Marwan
Bishara
Clash
of Civilizations? Hardly
Patrick
Cockburn
Modern
War in
A Medieval Village
October
13, 2001
Carl
Estabrook
Letters
to Editors
Molly
Secours
War:
The Procter and Gamble Perspective
Alexander
Cockburn
War
Can't Save the Economy
October
12, 2001
Imran
Khan
Try
Them in Court
Vijay
Prashad
War
in a Passive Voice
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombing
the Taliban
October
11, 2001
David
Vest
Bob
Dylan and 9/11
Amb.
Edward Peck
Bush
War Plan "Dumb"
Hani
Shukrallah
West
Is As West Does
Patrick
Cockburn
Looming
Humanitarian Crisis
October
10, 2001
Tom
Turnipseed
Earth
is Our "Homeland"
Steve
Perry
What
Is To Be Done?
Simon
Jenkins
The
Dumbest Weapon
Tariq
Ali
The
Pakistan Maelstrom
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
October
9, 2001
David
Vest
The
Rout That Wasn't
Michael
Mandel
This
War Is Illegal
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombs
Weaken Taliban
Lenni
Brenner
Powell
the Owl
Zha
Marginalization
and Terror
Steve
Perry
It
Begins
October
8, 2001
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
Resources:
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About 9/11
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By
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
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by Cockburn
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October 18,
2001
In Afghanistan
US Planes Pound Taliban
Troops
By Patrick Cockburn
in Panjshir
valley
The
Independent
Taliban troop concentrations in northern Afghanistan
became a target of American air strikes for the first time yesterday
in what appeared to signal a shift in strategy towards the Northern
Alliance.
Washington and London continued to insist
the Alliance would not be allowed to capture Kabul and form
the next Afghan government, but the air attacks paved the way
for the opposition fighters to launch a fierce assault on the
strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Last night Alliance forces appeared to
be closing in on the town. Diplomatic and intelligence sources
say America and Britain are preparing to let the Alliance take
it and the surrounding area with the proviso that its military
airport will be turned over to the Allies for a secure base
if requested.
Taliban forces defending Mazar-i-Sharif
face infantry assaults from the east and the west. The attacks
are being led by Commander Ato Mukham- med and General Rashid
Dostum. If the city does fall the Taliban's position in Afghanistan
north of the Hindu Kush mountains could rapidly unravel.
Abdul Vadud, the Afghan military attaché
in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, said yesterday the Alliance
forces were three miles from Mazar-i-Sharif and were shelling
its outskirts. He said Ato Mukham-med had seized the military
airport. Earlier reports said the Alliance had taken the civil
airport but had been driven back. Mohajeddin Mehdi, an Afghan
diplomat in Dushanbe, claimed the Taliban had concentrated tens
of thousands of fighters in the Mazar-i-Sharif area.
The advance is the first serious military
move by the Northern Alliance since the start of the crisis.
It is also a critical test of the Taliban ability to resist in
a region where they have never been popular.
A senior defence source in London said
yesterday: "It does not follow that the United Front [Northern
Alliance] taking Mazar-i-Sharif means they will go on to take
Kabul. That is something we are totally against and they have
assured us they that is something they will not do. We do not
believe they have the military capability and co-ordination
necessary, at present, to capture the capital without significant
outside help."
The allies believe Northern Alliance
forces are unfit to govern because of their record, and because
of vehement Pakistani objections. Mazar-i-Sharif appears to
be the compromise. Access to a secure base inside Afghanistan
would give strategists in Washington and London a lot more options.
The alternative would be to operate almost entirely from former
Russian bases in Uzbekistan and ones in Pakistan.
Allied strategists also believe a secure
base inside Afghanistan would help them to avert the impending
humanitarian catastrophe. With many roads becoming impassable
with the coming winter, airlift appears to be the only way to
bring in aid. Food, medicine and clothing can then be distributed
by helicopter.
Ideally, the Allies would have preferred
to operate from another former Soviet airbase, Bagram. The all-weather
airfield could be used by a variety of allied aircraft with
comparatively little building work. But Bagram's natural hill
defences make it difficult to wrest from the Taliban, and its
capture is thought to be beyond the present capacity of opposition
forces.
On the Kabul front, the Alliance was
making greater use of its artillery and rocket launchers. But
there is no sign yet of it making a full-scale military assault.
Local commanders say they have been ready
to attack for a week but have no orders. Many of the fighters
near the front are, in effect, militia from the villages, varying
in age from teenagers to old men. If fighting does not start
in the next few weeks on the Kabul front many of these men will
probably start to drift back to their homes.
The low military casualties reported
by the opposition are in keeping with the history of warfare
in Afghanistan over the past decade. Civilian casualties from
mines and shellfire have been heavy, but the small armies on
both sides have seldom fought serious battles. Kabul fell to
the Taliban in 1996 without a fight after Jalalabad was betrayed,
opening the capital to assault from the west.
In 1997, after the Taliban first held
Mazar-i-Sharif, an uprising in the city left 3,000 of their
men dead killed and 3,600 taken prisoner. Many prisoners were
later packed into containers and left to suffocate or were thrown
into deep wells.
In 1998, the Taliban took Mazar-i-Sharif
again and went on a rampage against the Hazara minority, shooting
people in the streets and packing others in containers to die.
The atrocities and counter-atrocities manifest the bitterness
of the animosity between Pashtun and non-Pashtun minorities.
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