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72 ~ TALIBANthe Polytechnic College. Twenty-two out of 30 NGOs voted to pull outof Kabul if the Taliban did not retract their demand, but the Taliban saidthe issue was non-negotiable.As the EU suspended all humanitarian aid to areas under Taliban control,Brahimi dropped a bombshell by going public on the UN's frustration.'This is an organization that hands out edicts to us that prevents usfrom doing our job,' he said. 'The Taliban must know that not only isthere a limit to what you can stand but that there are growing pressureson us - in particular from the donor community to say that there's alimit.' 4 The Taliban refused to relent and on 20 July 1998 they closeddown all NGO offices by force and an exodus of foreign aid-workers fromKabul began. The same day the bodies of two Afghans working for UNaid agencies, Mohammed Habibi of UNHCR and Mohammed Bahsaryarof WFP, who had been kidnapped earlier, were found in Jalalabad. TheTaliban offered no explanation for their deaths.With more than half of Kabul's 1.2 million people benefiting in someway from NGO handouts, women and children were immediate victimswhen aid was cut off. Food distribution, health care and the city's fragilewater distribution network were all seriously affected. As people wavedempty kettles and buckets at passing Taliban jeeps, their reply to thepopulation was characteristic of their lack of social concern. 'We Muslimsbelieve God the Almighty will feed everybody one way or another. If theforeign NGOs leave than it is their decision. We have not expelled them,'Planning Minister Qari Din Mohammed insisted. 5Meanwhile the Taliban had persuaded Pakistan and Saudi Arabia toback them in another offensive to take the north. The Saudi intelligencechief Prince Turki al Faisal visited Kandahar in mid-June, after which theSaudis provided the Taliban with 400 pick-up trucks and financial aid.Pakistan's ISI had prepared a budget of some 2 billion rupees (US$5million) for logistical support that was needed by the Taliban. ISI officersvisited Kandahar frequently to help the Taliban prepare the attack, asthousands of new Afghan and Pakistani recruits from refugee camps andmadrassas arrived to enlist with the Taliban. Meanwhile in March, Iran,Russia and Uzbekistan began to pour weapons, ammunition and fuel itthe anti-Taliban alliance. 6 While Iran flew in planeloads of weaponsthe Hazaras directly from Meshad to Bamiyan, the Russians and Iraniprovided Masud with weapons at an airbase in Kuliab in southern Tajitan, from where he transported them into Afghanistan.In July, the Taliban swept northwards from Herat, capturing Maimanaon 12 July 1998 after routing Dostum's forces and capturing 100 tanksand vehicles and some 800 Uzbek soldiers - the majority of whom theymassacred. On 1 August 1998, the Taliban captured Dostum's headquartersat Shiberghan after several of his commanders accepted TalibanBAMIYAN 1998-2000: THE NEVER-ENDING WAR 73bribes and switched sides. Dostum fled to Uzbekistan and later to Turkey.Demoralized by Dostum's desertion, more Uzbek commanders guardingthe western road into Mazar also accepted bribes, thereby exposing the1,500 strong Hazara force just outside the city to a surprise Taliban attack.It came in the early hours of 8 August 1998, when the Hazara forcessuddenly found themselves surrounded. They fought until their ammunitionran out and only 100 survived. By 10.00 a.m., the first Taliban pickupsentered Mazar, as an unsuspecting public was going about its dailybusiness. 7What followed was another brutal massacre, genocidal in its ferocity,as the Taliban took revenge on their losses the previous year. A Talibancommander later said that Mullah Omar had given them permission tokill for two hours, but they had killed for two days. The Taliban went ona killing frenzy, driving their pick-ups up and down the narrow streets ofMazar shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved -shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goatsand donkeys. Contrary to all injunctions of Islam, which demands immediateburial, bodies were left to rot on the streets. 'They were shootingwithout warning at everybody who happened to be on the street, withoutdiscriminating between men, women and children. Soon the streets werecovered with dead bodies and blood. No one was allowed to bury thecorpses for the first six days. Dogs were eating human flesh and going madand soon the smell became intolerable,' said a male Tajik who managedto escape the massacre. 8As people ran for shelter to their homes, Taliban soldiers barged in andmassacred Hazara households wholescale. 'People were shot three timeson the spot, one bullet in the head, one in the chest and one in thetesticles. Those who survived buried their dead in their gardens. Womenwere raped,' said the same witness. 'When the Taliban stormed into ourhouse they shot my husband and two brothers dead on the spot. Each wasshot three times and then their throats were slit in the hold way,' said a40-year-old Tajik widow. 9After the first full day of indiscriminate killing, the Taliban reverted totargeting the Hazaras. Unwilling to repeat their mistake the previous yearwhen they entered Mazar without guides, this time the Taliban hadenlisted local Pashtuns, once loyal to Hikmetyar, who knew the city well.Over the next few days, these Pashtun fighters from Balkh guided Talibansearch parties to the homes of Hazaras. But the Taliban were out of controland arbitrary killings continued, even of those who were not Hazaras.'I saw that a young Tajik boy had been killed - the Tahb was still standingthere and the father was crying. "Why have you killed my son? We areTajiks." The Talib responded, "Why didn't you say so?" And the fathersaid, "Did you ask that I could answer?"' 10