Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

52 ~ TALIBANPeacemaking always eluded Masud. He was a poor politician, incapableof convincing other Pashtun warlords who hated Hikmetyar that a Tajik-Pashtun alliance was the only feasible way to bring peace. Masud mayhave been a masterful military strategist but he was a failure at buildingpolitical alliances between different ethnic groups and parties. His majorproblem was that he was a Tajik. Except for one abortive uprising in1929, the Tajiks had never ruled in Kabul and were mistrusted by thePashtuns.In Kabul he remained aloof and refused to acccept government posts,declining the post of Defence Minister in President Rabbani's governmenteven though he commanded the army. 'There is an old Persian saying.When everyone is looking for a chair to sit on, it is better to sit on thefloor,' he told me in May 1996, just a few weeks before the Taliban wereto drive him out of Kabul. 'Pakistan is trying to subjugate Afghanistanand turn it into a colony by installing a puppet government. It won'twork because the Afghan people have always been independent and free,'he added.Working 18 hours a day with two military secretaries, who took it inshifts to keep up with him, he would sleep four hours a night and becauseof fears of assasination never spent two nights in the same location. Heslept, ate and fought with his men and invariably in the midst of a majorbattle he could be found on the frontline. In the next few months he wasto face his greatest challenge as the Taliban swept him out of Kabul andappeared to be on the verge of conquering the entire country. He survived,but by 1999, aged 46 years old, he had been fighting virtuallynon-stop for 25 years.Masud's forces now retreated up the Salang highway to his base area ithe Panjshir. As the Taliban pursued them, Masud's men blew up themountains, creating landslides to block the entrance to the valley. TheTaliban launched an abortive attack on the Panjshir but failed to makeheadway. They pushed up the Salang highway capturing towns along theway until they were blocked at the Salang tunnel by Dostum's forces, whohad advanced south from Mazar-e-Sharif. It was still unclear whose sideDostum would take and his forces refrained from engaging the Taliban.Mullah Rabbani met with Dostum on 8 October 1996 in a bid to tryand neutralize the Uzbeks while the Taliban went after Masud, but thetalks broke down. The Taliban refused to allow Dostum autonomy aHpower in the north. Pakistan also launched a diplomatic shuttle in a tto break Dostum away from Masud. However, Dostum realised that, dpite his differences with Masud, the Taliban posed the real threat tonon-Pashtuns. On 10 October 1996, deposed President Rabbani, Masud,Dostum and the Hazara leader Karim Khalili met in Khin ]an on thehighway and formed a 'Supreme Council for the Defence of the Mother'KABUL 1996: COMMANDER OS THE FAITHFUL ~ 53land' to counter the Taliban. It was the beginning of a new anti-Talibanalliance that would perpetuate the civil war.In their rapid advance northwards, the Taliban had spread themselvestoo thin and Masud took advantage of this, launching a major counterattackalong the highway on 12 October 1996. He captured several towns,killing and capturing hundreds of Taliban soldiers as they fled back toKabul in panic. On 18 October 1996, Masud's forces recaptured theBagram airbase and began to shell Kabul airport, even as Dostum's airforcebombed Taliban targets in Kabul. The heavy fighting resulted in thousandsof civilian casualties and forced 50,000 people to flee their homesin villages along the Salang highway. As these destitute refugees arrivedin Kabul, tens of thousands of Kabulis - mostly Tajiks and Hazaras - weretrying to escape in the other direction - eastwards to the Pakistan borderto escape Taliban reprisals and mass arrests which had begun in the city.Faced with rising casualties the Taliban began to suffer from manpowershortages and they started conscripting young men from Kabul into theirarmy, entering mosques and seizing worshippers. Thousands more volunteersarrived from Pakistan where some Pakistani ukma closed down theirmadrassas so that students would have no choice but to enlist en massewith the Taliban. Thousands of Pakistani students and Afghans from therefugee camps began to arrive daily in Kandahar and Kabul on buses hiredby Pakistan's Islamic parties. Pakistan waived all passport and visa requirementsfor them.Bolstered by this fresh support, the Taliban launched an attack in westernAfghanistan, moving northwards from Herat into Baghdis province.By the end of October 1996 Ismael Khan and 2,000 of his fighters, whohad been in exile in Iran, were flown into Maimana on Dostum's aircraftto defend the front line against the Taliban in Baghdis. Iran had rearmedand re-equipped Ismael Khan's forces in a provocative and deliberateattempt to bolster the new anti-Taliban alliance. As heavy fighting tookplace in Baghdis during November and December, with considerable useof air power by both sides, another 50,000 displaced people fled to Herat.This added to what was now a catastrophic refugee crisis for UN aidagencies as winter, heavy snows and fighting prevented the delivery ofhumanitarian aid.Despite heavy snowfall, the Taliban pushed Masud back from the outskirtsof Kabul. By the end of January 1997, they had recaptured nearlyall the territory they had lost along the Salang highway, retaking theBagram airbase and Charikar. Masud retreated into the Panjshir as theTaliban pushed up the highway to confront Dostum.The fall of Kabul and the intense fighting that followed created seriousapprehensions in the entire region. Iran, Russia and four Central AsianRepublics warned the Taliban not to move north and publicly declared