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

74 ~ TALIBANThousands of Hazaras were taken to Mazar jail and when it was full,they were dumped in containers which were locked and the prisonersallowed to suffocate. Some containers were taken to the Dasht-e-Lailidesert outside Mazar and the inmates massacred there - in direct retaliationfor the similar treatment meeted out to the Taliban in 1997. 'Theybrought three containers from Mazar to Shiberghan. When they openedthe door of one truck, only three persons were alive. About 300 weredead. The three were taken to the jail. I could see all this from where IJwas sitting,' said another witness. 11 As tens of thousands of civilians triedto escape Mazar by foot in long columns over the next few days, theTaliban killed dozens more in aerial bombardments.The Taliban aimed to cleanse the north of the Shia. Mullah Niazi, thecommander who had ordered Najibullah's murder was appointed Gov- jemor of Mazar and within hours of taking the city, Taliban mullahs wereproclaiming from the city's mosques that the city's Shia had three choices- convert to Sunni Islam, leave for Shia Iran or die. All prayer servicesconducted by the Shia in mosques were banned. 'Last year yourebelled against us and killed us. From all your homes you shot at us. Nowwe are here to deal with you. The Hazaras are not Muslims and now wehave to kill Hazaras. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan.Wherever you go we will catch you. If you go up we will pull youdown by your feet; if you hide below, we will pull you up by your hair,'Niazi declared from Mazar's central mosque. 12 As the Roman historian,;Tacitus said of the Roman conquest of Britain, 'the Roman army created]a desolation and called it peace.'With no independent observers around to do a body count, it wasimpossible to estimate the numbers killed, but the UN and the ICRClater estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 people were killed. It sub-;sequently became clear that along the route of the Taliban advance similarmassacres of Uzbeks and Tajiks had taken place in Maimana andShiberghan. My own estimate is that as many as between 6,000 and 8,000civilians were killed in July and August, including the heavy casualtiesamongst the anti-Taliban troops. But the Taliban's aim to terrorize thepopulation so that they would not rise against them later, was to remainunfulfilled.The Taliban were to target one more group in Mazar that was to bringdown a storm of international protest and plunge them into near war withIran. A small Taliban unit led by Mullah Dost Mohammed and includingseveral Pakistani militants of the anti-Shia, Sipah-e-Sahaba party enteredthe Iranian Consulate in Mazar, herded 11 Iranian diplomats, intelligence,officers and a journalist into the basement and then shot them dead.?Tehran had earlier contacted the Pakistan government to guarantee the,security of their Consulate, because the Iranians knew that ISI officersBAMIYAN 199S-2000: THE NEVER-ENDING WAR ~ 75had driven into Mazar with the Taliban. The Iranians had thought thatDost Mohammed's unit had been sent to protect them and so had welcomedthem at first. 13 The Taliban had also captured 45 Iranian truckdriverswho had been ferrying arms to the Hazaras.At first the Taliban refused to admit the whereabouts of the diplomatsbut then as international protests and Iranian fury increased, they admittedthat the diplomats had been killed, not on official orders but by renegadeTaliban. But reliable sources said that Dost Mohammed had spokento Mullah Omar on his wireless to ask whether the diplomats should bekilled and Omar had given the go-ahead. True or not the Iranians certainlybelieved this. Ironically Dost Mohammed later wound up in jail inKandahar, because he had brought back two Hazara concubines and hiswife in Kandahar complained to Mullah Omar. Some 400 Hazara womenwere kidnapped and taken as concubines by the Taliban. 14It was the Taliban victory, their control over most of Afghanistan andtheir expectation, fuelled by Pakistani officials that they would nowreceive international recognition, which partly prompted their guest, theSaudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, to become bolder in his declared jihadagainst the US and the Saudi Royal family. On 7 August 1998, BinLaden's sympathizers blew up the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,killing 224 people and wounding 4,500. This prompted the US to launchmissile strikes on Bin Laden's training camps in north-eastern Afghanistanon 20 August 1998. Dozens of cruise missiles hit six targets killingover 20 people and wounding 30 more. The US claimed that Bin Ladenhad been present but escaped the attack. In fact there were few Arabcasualties. Most of those killed were Pakistanis and Afghans who weretraining to fight in India-controlled Kashmir.The Taliban were outraged and organized demonstrations in Afghancities to protest against the attacks. UN offices in several towns wereattacked by mobs. Mullah Omar emerged to blast Clinton personally. 'Ifthe attack on Afghanistan is Clinton's personal decision, then he hasdone it to divert the world and the American people's attention fromthat shameful White House affair that has proved Clinton is a liar and aman devoid of decency and honour,' Omar said, in reference to theMonica Lewinsky affair. Omar insisted that Bin Laden was a guest, notjust of the Taliban but of the people of Afghanistan and that the Talibanwould never hand him over to the US. 'America itself is the biggestterrorist in the world,' Omar added. 15 As UN officials evacuated Kabulbecause of growing insecurity, gunmen shot dead an Italian UN militaryofficer and wounded a French diplomat. The two killers, Haq Nawaz andSalim both from Rawalpindi, whom the Taliban apprehended and jailedwere both Pakistani Islamic militants from the Harkat ul Ansar group.Instead of trying to placate their international critics and Iran, the