Word: mazar
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...That's why the Alliance needs American advisers, and why it may wait for more carpet bombs to fall before it tries to take Kabul. The U.S. hopes the fall of Mazar will set off a string of rebel victories in the north, demoralize Taliban forces in the rest of the country and inspire wholesale desertions. Now that a major city has fallen, says Sirrs, "the momentum will start to turn against the Taliban." But those who don't defect will melt into their surroundings, lie low and wait to pounce. "The Taliban is unlike anything we've ever seen...
...girls' high school. They were zealots, primed for death: after the Alliance commanders failed to coax them into surrender, a two-hour fire fight broke out, and all the Taliban troops were killed or captured. It was their last stand. The Taliban had set up no defenses inside Mazar, and by nightfall Friday the Alliance stormed the city. Dostum's men swept the streets, "trying to find Taliban fighters who have thrown away their guns and are pretending to be ordinary people," said a Dostum aide. "But most of them jumped into their pickups and left...
...Among the Taliban commanders at Mazar was the regime's army chief, Mullah Fazil, a man in his mid-20s who is the youngest member of the inner circle around supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Fazil's fate was unknown, but Alliance sources told Time that U.S. bombers inflicted heavy casualties on fleeing Taliban fighters. In Mazar locals rounded up stray Taliban who had failed to escape and held them until rebels arrived. Some captives were released and, a top Alliance official told Time, the conquering generals received specific orders not to mistreat prisoners of war. But the depths...
...residents greeted the liberators by sacrificing sheep in the streets, the American response to the Alliance's triumph was muted. Privately, U.S. officials fretted that the three main factions storming the city could end up battling one another before the smoke could clear. Dostum, the charismatic warlord who governed Mazar until a Taliban offensive unseated him in 1997, is notorious for his inconstancy and ruthlessness, and he has no intention of ceding authority to the 37-year-old Atta, a rising military star. Atta has curried support like a small-town mayoral candidate, printing up posters of himself to plaster...
...Despite losing Mazar, the Taliban is far from crippled. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admits that air strikes have killed only a tiny fraction of the Taliban forces, who are burrowed into caves and hidden in mosques and schools. The regime may be marshaling its soldiers and artillery for a hellacious counterattack. "It's not very surprising, given the heavy U.S. bombings, that they pulled out of Mazar," says Rifaat Hussain, head of defense and strategic studies at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University. "If the Taliban choose to fight a real battle, it will be over Kabul." The capital...