Word: dostum
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...last Wednesday night Mullah Fazil, Taliban commander of northern Afghanistan, leader of the 13,000-strong Kunduz garrison and deputy of supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, drove into Dostum's mud-walled fortress to talk surrender. The two men and armed aides shared vast plates of qabeli, the Afghan staple of rice and mutton, and bowls of pistachios, to break the Ramadan fast. "They were laughing and chatting," commander Mohammad Anwar Qureishi, one of the Alliance leaders present, told TIME, "and hours before, they had wanted to kill each other...
After the meal Dostum took Fazil aside to arrange the details: the one hang-up was the fate of thousands of Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens and al-Qaeda stalwarts in the city, who had vowed to die fighting--even to kill Taliban who tried to give up. A deal was cut: if Fazil could ensure that the entire force surrendered, Dostum would give all of them--including the foreign contingent--safe passage across the country to Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold far to the south. Dostum didn't care what happened to them once they left his area...
...named Saidu walked for 15 days through cannon fire and biting wind to reach a bleak refugee camp in the Pashtun desert of the south. "I've suffered too much," he said. "I'm not going back up north, not if [Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin] Rabbani is ruler or Dostum. They'll kill us Pashtun." The country could yet fracture along north-south lines as tribes coalesce in their home regions...
...days the city celebrated its liberation, but soon the victorious commanders zeroed in on the spoils. While Dostum, an Uzbek, held court at his Kalai Jangi fortress to the southeast, Tajik leader Atta Mohammed and Hazara chief Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq set themselves up in palatial villas in their own quarters of the city. In public all three insist their convenient alliance is holding as they empty Mazar of armed men and set up a joint security force...
...night tells a different story. Once the sun sets, residents scurry inside their high-walled houses as gunfire resounds across the city until dawn. Few people venture out of their neighborhoods, divided into Atta, Dostum and Mohaqiq ghettos. Two men were killed one night when a patrol of Atta's soldiers clashed with a group of Mohaqiq's men stealing a car. The same night Hazaras hijacked a taxi and beat up the driver. "It's just like it was before the Taliban were here," said the injured...