Word: hazaras
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...fast and far. Retreating into Mazar-i-Sharif's maze of dusty alleys was certain death; the Taliban had made too many enemies. During its three-year rule of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Taliban, who belong to the Pashtun tribes of southern Afghanistan, had mercilessly persecuted the Uzbek and Hazara ethnic minorities. After the city fell, they hauled up guns hidden under the floorboards and took revenge as the Taliban forces fled in disarray. "From the houses, the Uzbeks were picking off the Taliban stragglers," said an Islamabad-based aid worker in contact with the northern Afghan city...
...city, the Taliban mustered no more than sporadic skirmishing. That, and the week's long string of northern defeats, convinced anti-Taliban Pashtun that they could take down the core Taliban warriors in the south and persuade the rest to switch sides; the prospect of Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara fighters sweeping into Pashtun cities was far more harrowing to Taliban soldiers than was surrendering to their Pashtun brothers...
...fertilizer factory; they believed the U.S. wouldn't hit the factory because doing so could send deadly ammonia fumes into the air. After a meeting with Atta Thursday night, Dostum initiated skirmishes with the Taliban. On Friday morning, the two met with Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, who commands anti-Taliban Hazara fighters, to plan a three-pronged attack on Taliban positions ringing the city. A group of rebels surprised the Taliban by veering off the main road into Mazar and advancing from the southwest, through a rugged mountain pass known as the "gorge of healing springs." An all-night...
...Taliban soldiers torched villages as they retreated, and there were fears that hundreds of locals--mostly ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazara--may have been barricaded in their burning homes. By Friday morning, when Dostum's troops reached the gates of Mazar, the Alliance said it had taken dozens of Taliban troops captive; many more were on the highway, headed out of town. Across the northern tier of Afghanistan, the Taliban abandoned several garrisons but made fierce efforts to defend others. "When they first arrived here, these fanatics believed they were bulletproof," said an Alliance spokesman. "Now they've been shown...
...star. Atta has curried support like a small-town mayoral candidate, printing up posters of himself to plaster around the city, and Dostum is likely to take that as an affront. "There's a war within a war here," says Dostum aide Sayed Kamil. The area's Persian-speaking Hazara aren't happy about taking orders from either the Uzbek Dostum or the Tajik Atta. "We're not going to accept anybody as big brother," says Abdul Wahid, an aide to Mohaqiq, the Hazara military commander. If the tense alliance among these factions collapses, the U.S.'s dreams...