Word: dostum
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...Mazar-i-Sharif knew what was coming, they were taken by surprise. As dawn came Saturday, word spread that the besieged Taliban had broken out of its last northern refuge, Kunduz city to the east, and was advancing on Mazar, attacking security posts as it moved. General Rashid Dostum called his fellow commanders to a hasty meeting as Alliance fighters converged on the dusty square outside, readying their pickups and rocket launchers for battle. A small unit of American special forces arrived, and their commander slipped inside. A few minutes later, the Alliance chiefs jumped into their jeeps and sped...
...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...
...Even by the standards of Afghanistan's warlords, Dostum has an unsavory reputation. In earlier episodes of Afghanistan's wars, he was reputed to have killed those of his soldiers who broke the rules by tying them to the tracks of his tanks. But outside Mazar, his soldiers told their prisoners that Dostum wanted to make a gesture of reconciliation to help unite Afghanistan's warring tribes. Afghan members of the Taliban would be free to return to their homes, while foreigners would be detained before being handed over to the U.N. Dostum didn't search his prisoners; that...
...Taliban fighters, many of whom were foreigners, were transported from the field of surrender to a holding site in Qala-i-Jangi, a sprawling 19th century prison fortress to the west of Mazar, where Dostum stabled his horses. The convoy of prisoners had to pass through the city center; two weeks before, the Taliban had ruled the streets. The prisoners now peered out from under their blankets with shell-shocked, bloodshot eyes. The people of Mazar stared back at them with open hatred...
...TUESDAY By the next morning the surviving Taliban troops were beginning to flag; Rozi estimated that there were only about 50 survivors from the original 600 or so in the fort and that they had no water or ammunition left. Their only food was horsemeat from Dostum's cavalry. A fighter who had escaped during the night was caught by local residents and hanged from a tree. Alliance forces were so confident of victory that at one frontline position, three shared a powerful joint of hashish. Others tucked into peanut butter and jelly from the American food drops...