Word: pashtuns
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...Afghan King, Mohammed Zahir Shah, whom the U.S. has tapped as a symbolic rallying figure for post-Taliban Afghanistan. But if Shirzai is following the age-old Afghan custom of building bridges, he is also following its equally venerable tradition of nursing grudges. His clan is part of the Pashtun ethnic group, which, with 40% of the population, is Afghanistan's biggest. Shirzai is wary of the forces of the Northern Alliance, who are mostly Tajiks (25% of all Afghans) and Uzbeks (6%) and who are poised, should the Taliban fall, to greatly expand the limited terrain now under their...
...Taliban elements in the post-Taliban government, and there are going to have to be negotiations to work this out, because it may be impossible to create a stable government without some form of retreaded, moderate version of the Taliban having a stake. The Taliban are from the Pashtun group, which at 38 percent of the population is the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Right now the U.S. is looking to find Pashtun groups who are not with the Taliban and work with those...
...Washington has sensed its limitations as a replacement government. The Alliance represents only the minority Tajik, Uzbek and Hazari ethnic groups, and carries the backing of Iran, Russia and Moscow's Central Asian allies. Afghanistan cannot be easily ruled by a government that excludes its largest ethnic group, the Pashtun (from which the Taliban are exclusively drawn). Or, for that matter, without the consent of Pakistan, the other key regional player in Afghanistan which has helped the Taliban fight the Northern Alliance...
...uniting behind Zahir Shah. Islamabad is aghast at the possibility that the Northern Alliance--backed by Iran and Pakistan's enemy, India--might actually topple the Taliban with U.S. military help. The clan chieftains agree for ethnic reasons: except for a few brief and violent intervals, the majority Pashtun tribes have always ruled Afghanistan, and they want to see that happen again. As a Pashtun, Zahir Shah fits the bill. The ethnic minorities of the Northern Alliance find him acceptable too. After dismissing past efforts to bring back the monarch, Pakistan is now inviting him to send an envoy...
...comes to it, some Pashtuns are itching for a fight. In the tribal belt just south of Peshawar, Pashtun elders announced they had recruited 12,000 volunteers to fight a holy war if the U.S. sends in ground troops. One commander from an eastern Afghan province was recently in Peshawar exploring the monetary incentives on offer for a mutiny against his Taliban ruler in Kandahar. He was approached by one of his fighters: "Is it true American soldiers wear boots that cost 5,000 rupees [about $80] each? I could sell them in the bazaar." In the same province, recounted...