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60 ~ TALIBANThe Ghilzais, who had dominated the anti-Soviet war effort were notprepared to be used as cannon fodder by the Taliban without adequaterepresentation in the Durrani-dominated Taliban Shuras. They wouldcome if they were given a share of power. Ghilzai commanders with theTaliban were extremely critical of Taliban tactics in Mazar. 'There weretoo many mistakes made in Mazar. The initial agreement between Malikand the Taliban happened in too short a time. They should have discussedthe agreement for a longer time and built up a dialogue with each other.They also made many military mistakes,' Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leadingeastern Pashtun commander with the Taliban told me in Kabul in July1997.Haqqani, who commanded Taliban troops on the Kabul front, was aveteran Pashtun commander from Khost in Paktia province who had.jjoined the Taliban in 1995. He was one of the most celebrated commandersfrom the anti-Soviet war. Although Haqqani was made a ministerin Kabul, he and other non-Kandaharis remained extremely bitter thatthey were kept out of the decision-making process that took place inKandahar under Omar, rather than in Kabul. 7 After the Mazar defeatthe Taliban gave Haqqani a large sum of money to recruit 3,000 Ghilzaitribesmen. Haqqani arrived with his men on the Kabul front, but beingpowerless to make military decisions and the fact that they were led byKandahari officers at the front led to mass desertions. Within two monthsHaqqani had only 300 of his new recruits left. Even more disturbing wasthat villages around Kandahar were refusing to send their sons to enlistwith the Taliban. For the first time the Taliban had a recruitment problem and a manpower shortage.For the Central Asian states the bloodshed on their doorstep created aparanoid reaction as they considered the spectre of the war crossing intotheir territories and the thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing across theftporous borders. In an unprecedented move, military security washeightened throughout the region. Some 3,000 Russian troops on theUzbekistan-Afghanistan border, 25,000 Russian troops on the Tajikistan-?Afghanistan border, Russian border guards in Turkmenistan and localarmy divisions all went on a high state of alert. Uzbekistan and Tajikistanclosed their borders with northern Afghanistan. At Termez, Uzbek helicoptergunships flew patrol as troops laid tank traps and fortified the bridgethat crosses the Amu Darya river, which divides Afghanistan from Central Asia.Russia offered to send ten battalions of troops to Kyrgyzstan afterappeal by Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, even though his country has noborder with Afghanistan. Russia and Kazakhstan organized an emergencymeeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to discithe crisis, where Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov promiMAZAR-E-SHARIF 1997: MASSACRE IN THE NORTH ~ 61'very tough and effective actions by Russia', if the Taliban advanced further.Turkmenistan, a self-declared neutral state which bordered westernAfghanistan, had developed working relations with the Taliban but theTurkmen were unnerved by the fighting around Mazar. For the first time9,000 Afghan Turkmen crossed the border into Turkmenistan seekingshelter from the fighting.Iran said it would continue to support the anti-Taliban alliance andappealed to Russia, India and the Central Asian states to help them also.Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayti urged the UN to intervene.The Taliban were furious with all of their neighbours. 'Iran and Russiaare interfering and supporting the opposition. They have given aircraft tothe opposition to carry out bombardments. Iran is flying up to 22 flights aday to Mazar carrying arms,' said Mullah Mohammed Abbas, the TalibanMinister of Health. 8Iranian and Central Asian diplomats bitterly accused Pakistan of notonly supporting the Taliban, but of lying and betraying a solemn commitmentmade by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif just a week before the Talibanoffensive. At a summit of regional heads of state in Ashkhabad, the capitalof Turkmenistan, Sharif had promised to reign in the Taliban andprevent the war spreading to the north. 'Pakistan's credibility in CentralAsia is zero right now,' a senior Uzbek diplomat told me. 9However, the arrival of the Taliban in the north did have a salutaryeffect on the four-year-old civil war in Tajikistan as it forced both sidesin the conflict to quicken the pace of negotiations out of fear of theTaliban. A peace settlement between the Tajik government and theIslamic opposition, brokered by Russia and the UN was finally reached inMoscow on 27 June 1997. The settlement provided a major boost toMasud as Russia could now re-supply him from bases inside Tajikistan.Masud was given the use of the airport in Kuliab in southern Tajikistanwhere he received Russian and Iranian supplies which he then flew intothe Panjshir valley.The anti-Taliban alliance now tried to cement their unity by reformulatinga new political alliance, which had to take into account Dostum'sdeparture from the scene. On 13 June 1997 they set up the 'UnitedIslamic and National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan' and declaredMazar as their capital. They reappointed Burhanuddin Rabbani as Presidentand Masud as the new Defence Minister and promised to form a newgovernment which would include tribal and Islamic leaders as well astechnocrats. But the pact was doomed to failure as again differencesbetween Malik, Masud and Khalili prevented the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazarasfrom working together.At the root of the split was the other leaders' suspicions of Malik afterhis string of betrayals. Malik had been unable to prevent a force of some