Word: mazar
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...impossible to verify these reports right now because no journalists are in the area at all - this part of the war is being reported entirely by phone. We're frantically trying to call sources inside Mazar-i-Sharif right now, but all the lines are jammed. Still, the sources who have fed us this information have proved fairly reliable in the past. Three Alliance commanders in the area have told identical stories. And it's a claim they're unlikely to make unless it were true. They are confident that they'll be in Mazar tomorrow...
...recent history of Mazar-i-Sharif is extremely bloody. When a Northern Alliance commander switched sides in 1997 and let the Taliban in, they immediately started ordering everyone around. The population turned on them, massacring between two- and four thousand Taliban troops. So when the Taliban recaptured the city the following year, they took a bloody revenge, killing some 6,000 civilians. Everyone had been expecting that once the Taliban were under siege and in trouble, the city would rise up against them, precipitating a bloodbath. With the appetite for revenge in Mazar-i-Sharif, nobody was expecting the Taliban...
...They still hold Herat, which is a long way from Mazar, and they'd have to move down along the Turkmenistan border to get there. But the Taliban are in a strong position at Herat. So that's one possible retreat. The more obvious choices are Taloqan and Kunduz. But if they're there and the road from Kabul to Mazar is cut, the Taliban forces there face being cut off, because many of the local commanders between them and Kabul may be bought...
...they could be looking at another siege situation. A lot of the Taliban fighters in Mazar were not Afghan - they're Chechens, Pakistanis, Saudis and others, and they don't have anywhere to run and hide. They tend to be more extreme and ideologically committed, and they say their death prayers before they go into battle. People had been expecting them to stand to the last man at Mazar. If they go to Kunduz, they may simply be postponing that last stand. Unless they plan to surrender, which nobody is expecting...