Word: panjshir
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...hardware and ammunition from Iran and Russia must follow one of two treacherous supply routes. The first is a limited airlift: a handful of Mi-17 transport helicopters that load up at supply dumps in Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan, then fly across the towering Hindu Kush range to the Panjshir Valley and Shomali Plain. But last week bad weather and low visibility grounded those choppers. The other supply line is a rock-strewn mountain track that winds for more than 150 miles from Afghanistan's northern border through the heart of the Hindu Kush, crossing the 13,000-ft. Anjuman...
Black mourning banners still wave across the steep gorges, pockmarked villages and invisible redoubts that make up the thin sliver of Afghanistan not conquered by the Taliban. They honor the "Lion of Panjshir," Ahmed Shah Massoud, revered commander of the anti-Taliban forces, assassinated two days before the attacks on the U.S. Yet the loose collection of Northern Alliance fighters now calling themselves the United Front, who have doggedly held their narrowing ground for five years, are filled with high hope. American bombs are coming. America will help them win the victory they couldn't win themselves...
...between mountains, not above them, a few dozen feet above the lower peaks, a few hundred from the cliffs on each side. There is no room for error. The roads are no less a challenge. The unpaved single-track trail from the helicopter pad at Astana in the Panjshir Valley--a United Front stronghold--winds between a fast-moving river and steeply rising mountainsides...
...Whatever the purpose, the removal of Massoud from his stronghold has presented the already splintered Northern Alliance with a leadership crisis at a critical juncture. The embattled guerrillas hold only one remaining province?northeastern Badakhashan?and Massoud's native Panjshir Valley. Attempting to fill Massoud's place as overall commander is Mohammad Fahim, a 44-year-old Panjshiri regarded as a competent military commander who lacks his former boss's magnetism and political flair...
...impossible to replace Massoud, Afghanistan's strongest champion of moderate Islam and a passionate nationalist who led the resistance against Soviet occupation, earning the title "Lion of Panjshir" for doggedly defending the valley. For years he complained about Washington's reluctance to rein in Pakistan's covert military support for the Taliban. "We have told Western countries again and again of the dangers of Taliban extremism, of bin Laden and his terrorists," he recently told TIME at his headquarters. In recent years, however, he came to be seen in some Western circles as a leader who could challenge not only...