Word: pashtun
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...attacks follow public statements by elements close to al-Qaeda and the Taliban promising a new guerrilla campaign against the U.S. and the Karzai government. Earlier this week, the notorious Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declared a 'jihad' for the ouster of foreign forces from Afghanistan. With Karzai's authority limited to the capital, much of the countryside in the hands of fickle warlords and many Pashtuns suspicious of the disproportionate dominance of ethnic Tajiks in his government, the remnants of the Taliban may be finding fertile ground for a resurgence. Beside the bomb blasts and assassination attempts in the capital...
...proxy force which seized Kabul last Fall (against Washington's wishes) and became the dominant component of Karzai's government (much to the president's discomfort, although their power on the ground - and the reluctance of the U.S. to challenge it - leaves him little choice). Despite his own Pashtun roots, Karzai's ability to secure support in his heartland is imperiled by the disproportionate Tajik power in Kabul. That suits his Pashtun enemies: Since the Spring, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Hekmatyar have all sought to foment a new 'jihad' against Karzai and the U.S. by exploiting Pashtun alienation from...
Private Mo'allem, 26, is having difficulty with the push-ups, but he is proud nevertheless. "Two weeks ago, I could hardly do five," the Pashtun says with a grin. "Now I'm up to 25." But he had better not bad-mouth privates from other Afghan ethnic groups as they all train together under U.S. Green Berets commissioned to create the new Afghan national army. The penalty for ethnic slurs is 50 push-ups. But it's still possible to get away with a sniping remark now and then. The Americans need a troop of translators to tell what...
...knows the changing fortunes of post-Taliban Afghanistan better than Zadran. Before Sept. 11, he was living as a refugee in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Then came the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The U.S.-led coalition needed local proxies to prosecute the war in the Pashtun-dominated southeast. Zadran, who fought against the Soviets and the Taliban, found himself flush with U.S. cash and with an army of foot soldiers. Zadran and his extended clan actually ran the provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika for a few weeks last spring until he was chased...
Only once did something happen that might have given Massoud hope that the U.S. would help. In late June, he was joined in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, by Abdul Haq, a leading Pashtun, based in Dubai, who was opposed to the Taliban. Haq was accompanied by someone Massoud knew well: Peter Tomsen, a retired ambassador who from 1989 to '92 had been the U.S. State Department's special envoy to the Afghan resistance. Also present was James Ritchie, a successful Chicago options trader who had spent part of his childhood in Afghanistan and was helping bankroll the groups opposed to the Taliban...