Word: mazar
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...paying respects and requesting his signature on a flurry of papers. In turn, both Atta and Mohaqiq are required to drive out of the city to Dostum's fort when the veteran warlord summons them. (Dostum also maintains a castle-like complex in Shiburghan, some two hours west of Mazar.) And while the popular Atta talks loftily of democracy and elections to form a new city administration, Mohaqiq's aides scoff at what they see as provincial politicking. Mohaqiq himself proposes an appointed governor and staff to insure the minority Hazaras are represented. Meanwhile a Dostum aide is disdainful...
...Already, some Mazar residents are muttering that the Taliban, as a united and centralized government, got some things right. Former judge Maulavi Mohammed Afzal says, "The root of their control was just terror?they would kill five people at a time without trial?but some people did support and admire them because they did cut crime." Aid workers are already finding the post-Taliban regime more cumbersome to deal with: they need to negotiate with several different commanders to get anything done. "They are like small businesses," says Linda van Weyenburg of M?decins Sans Fronti?res. "Everything becomes more complicated...
...Afghanistan, nothing is ever what it seems. Including surrender. On Nov. 24, a bright, warm Saturday, 300 Taliban soldiers who had fled the American bombardment of Kunduz, their last stronghold in the north of Afghanistan, laid down their weapons in the desert a few kilometers to the north of Mazar-i-Sharif. They surrendered to Northern Alliance General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who crowed that his forces had achieved a "great victory" as the POWs were herded 50 at a time onto flatbed trucks...
...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...