Word: northerners
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...commander of the assault, told TIME that a team of U.S. special forces had come in the night before to coordinate the bombing. The Alliance brought in 21 tanks at midnight to add firepower, and they have been unloading on Taliban lines since midmorning. The morale of the Northern Alliance troops is high after the sudden fall of Mazar-i-Sharif the night before, and they jokingly predict that with U.S. help they will take Taloqan by Sunday...
...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...
...fall of Mazar-i-Sharif may be a heartening victory for the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, but it has sharpened the ancient feuds that bedevil Afghanistan. The Pashtun--a group of tribes that accounts for about 40% of the country's 26 million people--are almost sure to rally behind the Taliban, since America is now seen as backing the Pashtun's worst enemies. The Pashtun have ruled Afghanistan since the 18th century, and their will to fight may be steeled by the specter of marauding Northern Alliance troops--made up of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras--attacking with U.S. warplanes...
...uniting the Pashtun on any side will not be an easy task. Afghan vendettas date back centuries. Not only do the Pashtun tribes despise the ethnic minorities of the Northern Alliance, but they often blast away at one another too. Feuds drag on for generations, with every man called upon to defend his tribe's honor. The Pashtun unite briefly when an outsider swaggers in, such as Alexander the Great, the Soviets and now the Americans. Left to themselves, they plant land mines to settle a property dispute. A youth from Peshawar was recently celebrated in the newspapers...
...choppers early last week, according to the Pentagon. The U.S. hopes that Karzai will help persuade the Pashtun not to side with the Taliban against the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras. But for that to happen, Washington must rein in the worst excesses of their ethnic foes, once Northern Alliance fighters sweep into the Pashtun tribal lands...