Word: gul
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Advisers to Gul Agha Sherzai, the warlord who has retaken control of Kandahar, told reporters Wednesday that seven Taliban leaders had surrendered their weapons and vehicles to Sherzai and sworn loyalty to him. The governor then sent them home to their villages. The next day, Sherzai's men claimed Turabi was the only Talib to surrender. A day later, no one had surrendered--but six (Turabi and five low-level officials) were said to have approached Sherzai and asked for amnesty, which he refused. But he promised not to pursue them as long as they left a forwarding address. They...
...outside Kabul. The U.S. will have to rely on local commanders like Sherzai, who owes his position to American cash and the squad of Green Berets that has chaperoned him around for two months. But Sherzai and the other warlords running Afghanistan need the support of the locals too. "Gul Agha will be thinking of the future," a former Talib told TIME. "When America goes, he will still be here." Sherzai was no doubt thinking of the future when he let Turabi slip over the border...
...that point there was talk of negotiation. Commander Mullah Gul Akhund, fresh from Kabul, did not like the idea: "I would rather kill them." A few shots inside the headquarters were the final word. Minutes later two men were whisked away. The crowds dispersed and the mujahedin relaxed. Throughout the day short bursts or single shots could be heard coming from the area, but fighting didn't resume...
...Kandahar is a polarized city; governor Gul Agha Sherzai has the title, but not all the power. In this new and unsettled post-Taliban Afghanistan, a soldier's loyalty often lies not with the governor, but with the commander who lent him to the government. It's not a stable system, especially now that noses are out of joint over the gubernatorial appointment. And so the robbers, branded as Sherzai's Pakistani recruits, were besieged at 7 a.m. by mujahedin, many from rival factions. Kalashnikovs began barking back and forth, soon joined by salvos of rocket propelled grenades, the explosions...
...victory they were celebrating came with relative ease - one mujahidin fighter died and seven Al Qaeda fighters, according to commanders. Gul Karim led a group of about 30 fighters, including Crazy, in the Monday assault on the caves and a cluster of mud-earth houses nearby. The first thing he did was raise the enemy on a walkie-talkie. "He said they don't want to fight us, that we all are Muslims. They said leave us the Americans and we will fight them." It had no effect. "Our troops had orders to attack," he says. His soldiers, most...