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70 ~ TALIBANyears of battle and held his kalashnikov like a professional soldier. TheHazaras were not without friends. Iran was flying in military supplies to anewly constructed two-mile-long landing strip outside Bamiyan andKarim Khalili, the leader of Wahadat, spent the winter visiting Tehran,Moscow, New Delhi and Ankara looking for more military aid.But the Hazaras had also overstretched themselves. There were severalfactions amongst them, all competing for territory, influence and foreignaid. Separate factions of Hizb-e-Wahadat each controlled a part of Mazarand they fought each other as well as the Uzbeks, turning Mazar into awar zone and the anti-Taliban alliance into a political shambles. Iranianand Russian intelligence officers made several attempts at mediatingbetween Dostum, who was then based in Shiberghan, and the Hazaras, as:well as between the Hazara factions, but no side would compromise. InFebruary 1998, as heavy fighting erupted inside Mazar between the Uzbeksand the Hazaras, Masud paid his first visit to Tehran to try and persuadethe Iranians to do something to save the anti-Taliban alliance before itjwas too late. Meanwhile the Taliban sat out the winter, watching theirenemies tear each other apart while tightening the siege around Bamiyanand preparing for another attack on Mazar.Fighting continued through the winter months in the western provinceof Faryab, where the Taliban carried out another massacre in January Ithis time of some 600 Uzbek villagers. Western aid-workers who lateinvestigated the incident said civilians were dragged from their homeslined up and gunned down. International censure against the Taliban'ipolicies escalated as they imposed ever stricter Islamic laws and punishmentsin Kabul. The public amputation of limbs, lashings, stoning oijwomen and executions became weekly events in Kabul and Kandahar.International Women's Day on 8 February 1998 was dedicated to thiplight of Afghan women under Taliban rule. A hearing in the USon the Afghan gender issue attracted widespread publicity, as did condemnnation of the Taliban's policies by such luminaries as Hillary Clinton.The Taliban issued new edicts, stipulating the exact length of befor males and a list of Muslim names with which newborn childrento be named. The Taliban shut down the few home schools for girls twere operating in Kabul, as the religious police went on a rampage forciall women off the streets of Kabul and insisting that householdblackened their windows, so women would not be visible from the outside.Women were now forced to spend all their time indoors, where not evisunlight could penetrate. Taliban hardliners were determined to forceUN aid agencies out of Afghanistan and they provoked a number of incidents that tested UN patience to the limit.On 24 February 1998 all UN staff pulled out of Kandahar and hatoaid operations there after senior Taliban leaders beat up UN staffBAMIYAN 1998-2000: THE NEVER-ENDING WAR ~ 71threatened them. Mullah Mohammed Hassan, the usually mild-mannered,one-legged Governor of Kandahar, threw a table and a chair at the headof one UN official and then tried to throttle him, because he had refusedto pave a road in Hassan's village. In March, the Taliban refused to allowAlfredo Witschi-Cestari, the head of UN humanitarian aid operations tovisit Kabul for talks. And the UN remained deeply frustrated by the Talibansiege of the Hazarajat. 'In the north there is complete insecurity forour aid operations and in the south we have a hell of a horrible timeworking with the Taliban. In the north there is no authority and in thesouth there is a very difficult authority,' Lakhdar Brahimi told me. 3Despite these problems Brahimi attempted to set up a meeting betweenthe Taliban and the anti-Taliban alliance. Anxious to avoid meeting theopposition's leaders and thereby give them further legitimacy, the Talibansuggested a meeting of ukma from both sides. For several months theysquabbled with each other as to who qualified to be an ukma. The UNmustered the help of the US. Bill Richardson, President Clinton's foreignpolicy troubleshooter and the US Ambassador to the UN, visitedAfghanistan for a day of parachute diplomacy on 17 April 1998 and persuadedboth sides to convene the ukma meeting.Both sides were trying to woo the US and the flamboyant Richardsonreceived a rapturous reception. He was deluged with gifts of carpets,saddlebags and turbans. In Kabul the Taliban allowed the accompanyingUS TV crews to film their leaders for the first time and, as a courtesy toRichardson, they postponed their regular Friday public spectacle of lashingsand amputations in the city's football stadium. But although theTaliban leaders in Kabul promised to ease the siege of Hazarajat and discusstheir gender policies with the UN, Mullah Omar rejected the agreementjust a few hours after Richardson left.The ukma met in Islamabad under UN auspices at the end of Apriland after four days of talks each side agreed to nominate 20 ukma to apeace commission, which would decide on such issues as a cease-fire, liftingthe Taliban siege on the Hazarajat and an exchange of prisoners.However, the Taliban then refused to nominate their delegation and byMay another peace process had collapsed - even as the Taliban prepareda fresh offensive.Part of these preparations involved a fresh escalation with the UN. InJune the Taliban stopped all women from attending general hospitals andordered all female Muslim UN staff travelling to Afghanistan to be chaperonedby a mehram or a blood relative - an impossible demand to meet,especially as UN agencies had increased the number of Muslim femaleaid-workers, precisely so as to satisfy Taliban demands and gain access toAfghan women. The Taliban then insisted that all NGOs working inKbl move out of their offices and relocate to the destroyed building of