Word: northerners
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...They drove out both Rabbani and his enemies, winning over most of the local warlords who dominate rural Afghanistan. Rabbani's ousted Tajik forces joined with the Shiite Hazari mujahedeen backed by Iran and with Dostum's Uzbek militia to create the Northern Alliance, which has now reclaimed Kabul thanks to the U.S. campaign against the Taliban. And while they're paying lip service to the notion of a "broad-based government," Rabbani is back in Kabul. Despite its internal divisions - Hazari fighters last week marched into Kabul to stake their own claim for a share of the Alliance...
...they contemplate the perilous unfolding of the post-Taliban political scenario, many may soon be reminded why the Taliban were actually welcomed by many residents when they first seized the city in 1996 - they hoped the fundamentalist militia would at least bring peace. Now rival warlords within the Northern Alliance and among former mujahedeen commanders in the Pashtun south are deploying fighters to stake their claim to post-Taliban Afghanistan, and next week's U.N.-sponsored talks in Berlin over the country's political future are part of an increasingly urgent effort to avoid a new civil...
...Afghanistan's neighbors have historically sought to shape her politics to their needs, from the 19th century "Great Game" between the Russian and British empires to the Soviet invasion of 1979 and Pakistan's intervention via the Taliban in the mid 1990s. The Northern Alliance has enjoyed the support of Iran, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia, each for their own reasons, while Pakistan threw its weight behind the Taliban. The regional dynamic may now be critical to international efforts at brokering a compromise. Even as it prioritizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden, on the diplomatic front the U.S. finds...
...facts on the ground emerged before a wider political consensus had been achieved. Indeed, the Taliban appears to have even negotiated its withdrawal with relatively friendly non-Taliban Pashtun warlords in a number of cities in the south on the understanding that they shared a mutual enmity for the Northern Alliance. But rival Pashtun warlords quickly emerged to stake their own claim, setting up roadblocks, charging "tolls" and marking out their own fiefdoms by deploying armed men. And while the old mujahedeen carve the south into fiefdoms, Northern Alliance commanders appear to have done the same with the major towns...
...danger of renewed fighting is growing, not only between the Northern Alliance and mujahedeen forces, but also on each side of that divide. And, of course, the Taliban remains a factor. Its soldiers for the most part retreated and dispersed without a fight, and may yet have an impact on the new power equation (particularly in the south) even though they'll be excluded from a direct political role...