Word: panjshir
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...grim isolation, huddled in a darkened cell of a former Soviet-built prison deep in northern Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley. They are sequestered from nearly 600 other prisoners, but even if they were allowed to mingle, they would still stand apart. The style of their clothes, the color of their skin, their very language mark them as outsiders. They are not Afghans. They are Pakistanis, captured while fighting against the forces of the Afghan government that was driven from the capital five weeks ago by the group of Islamic fighters known as the Taliban. The presence of these foreign supporters...
...denied any involvement, but in late September, Naseerullah Babar, Pakistan's Interior Minister, flew to Afghanistan to work out a settlement between the Taliban and the most powerful of the Afghan warlords. While that seemed to support suspicions, the stories told by several of the prisoners in the Panjshir, if true, would constitute the first direct evidence that Islamabad's involvement with the war-riven nation to the west extends to recruiting Pakistanis and paying them to fight alongside the Taliban...
...hills surrounding the capital. Zai was captured Oct. 13 near the Salang Pass, the high-water mark of the Taliban effort to drive Massoud's forces from the region. The campaign turned disastrous when Massoud retreated until the Taliban had stretched their lines dangerously thin. Then the Lion of Panjshir turned and abruptly struck at their flanks, a tactic he had used many times against the Soviets...
...make an appearance, running the capital from his base 300 miles to the south in Kandahar. And the Taliban aren't finished fighting. The forces of ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani, led by former Army Chief Ahmad Shah Massoud, are holed up 31 miles north of Kabul in the isolated Panjshir Valley, and have blown up the road leading in. Rabbani is rumored to have fled to Iran. Even more intractable was General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord who controls a large tract of territory on the northeastern border...
...government's most immediate military concern focuses on the Salang. The Soviets have been able to keep the route open by combining military muscle with diplomacy. Outposts dot the way. Soviet officers had an informal understanding with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the powerful mujahedin commander in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul: safe passage for Soviet vehicles as long as Moscow keeps up the withdrawal. After last week's offensive by Soviet and Afghan troops, that arrangement may be finished...