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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
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October 24,
2001
In Afghanistan
The Battle for Mazar
Gets Nasty
By Patrick Cockburn
in Bagram
The
Independent
Fighting raged around Mazar-i-Sharif when the
Afghan opposition advanced on the strategic northern city for
the first time, aided by American bombers pounding Taliban frontline
positions.
If the city falls, then the Taliban position
to the north of the country, where they have never been popular,
might begin to unravel.
In the past two days, General Abdul Rashid
Dostum, the Uzbek warlord notorious for his frequent changes
of side, has advanced to within striking distance of Mazar-i-Sharif.
He said fighting was still going on yesterday after his forces
launched an attack on Monday. "Fighting has been fierce,"
he said.
The Northern Alliance, the opposition
umbrella organisation to which General Dostum belongs, insisted
it was inflicting heavy losses. According to General Dostum:
"They [the Taliban] left many bodies on the battlefield."
The most important change over the past
week in the battle for Mazar is that for the first time the US
Air Force is giving the Northern Alliance close support. There
are eight American officers with General Dostum gathering information
on targets. This is a new policy. A week ago the bombers seemed
to be avoiding hitting the Taliban front line, particularly in
the area 30 miles north of Kabul, in deference to Pakistan's
demand that the Northern Alliance not be allowed to capture the
capital. Now Washington seems to have concluded that only the
Northern Alliance, if supported by American bombers, has the
ground troops capable of inflicting severe defeat on the Taliban.
One of the first results of the change
in tactics is that the war has got nastier. The front line north
of Kabul is full of people living in mud-brick villages and farming
some of the most fertile land in the country. Yesterday two rockets,
fired from a Taliban-held mountain called Ghorband, slammed into
the crowded bazaar in Charikar, a dishevelled market town, still
showing signs of damage from the last time the Taliban took it
and were driven out. The shrapnel from the explosions killed
two people, one an elderly vegetable seller, who was tossed into
the air by the blast.
The struggle for northern Afghanistan
is now under way. It is a critical test for the Northern Alliance,
which has seen an extraordinary reversal in fortunes in the past
six weeks. Until 11 September, it seemed to be an expiring organisation.
The only common denominator linking its members some, such
as General Dostum, with deeply unsavoury reputations was
that they had been beaten by the Taliban. Each year the Northern
Alliance had lost ground and was increasingly penned into its
strongholds in the north.
Then, within the space of two days, the
Northern Alliance suffered an appalling disaster, closely followed
by its greatest opportunity. Its chief military leader, Ahmad
Shah Masood, the most skilled and experienced of Afghan generals,
was assassinated on 9 September. This might have been its death
knell. But two days later, after the attacks in America, the
Northern Alliance suddenly found itself potentially allied to
the greatest powers on earth.
It has had difficulty rising to the occasion.
Simply concentrating Northern Alliance military forces is a nightmare.
The bone-jarring quality of Afghanistan's dirt roads has to be
seen and felt to be believed. That makes moving soldiers very
difficult. Most of the 4,000 troops in and around the town of
Jabal Saraj are village militia, but recently 1,000 uniformed
and well-trained special assault soldiers arrived.
The supply problems facing the Northern
Alliance commanders are horrific. General Dostum is attacking
Mazar from his mountain stronghold to the south of the city,
which is isolated from the rest of the opposition territory.
It can be reached only by helicopter. But and this is a
big change from a month ago the position of the Taliban
is now almost as bad. They are nearly isolated north of the soaring
Hindu Kush mountains, which rise to 15,000 feet and, in effect,
cut Afghanistan in two.
The only good metalled road from Kabul
to Mazar passes through Jabal Saraj and then goes along the beautiful
Salang valley where the late autumn weather has turned the trees
a golden yellow. The road climbs the mountains and then abruptly
ends in a tangle of smashed concrete where Ahmad Shah Masood
blew up the tunnel through the Hindu Kush three years ago. It
has now filled with water and would take months to reopen.
The Taliban had two other poor-quality
roads to the north. But one of these has been closed since the
soldiers commanding it defected to the Northern Alliance. Only
one route, far to the west, remains to them. Most importantly,
they are unable any longer to move their troops by air because
of the American-led offensive.
Nevertheless the Taliban must fight hard
for Mazar because their political position in north Afghanistan
has always been weak. The Taliban come overwhelmingly from the
Pashtun, who make up 38 per cent of the Afghan population. But
in the north of the country it is the minorities who are in the
majority. All have been persecuted by the Taliban and may now
seek revenge.
Among the Taliban's enemies are the Hazara,
a Shia Muslim minority of Mongolian origin. In the mountains
of the north-east are the Tajiks, always hostile to the Taliban,
and in the west the Uzbeks, strong in Mazar and the majority
in the country near by.
With the cards so stacked against the
Taliban, the opposition should win in the north. Indeed if they
do not win now, when they are supported by American air power,
observers cannot see how they would ever do so. Yet being entirely
confident is difficult, because changes in the fortunes of war
in Afghanistan have in the past been the result of betrayals
rather than victory on the battlefield.
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