Word: pashtuns
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...needs other silent partners for the search--like locals and rebels tied to the Northern Alliance. But exaggeration and contradictions color their tales, and their sources inhabit the north while bin Laden is more likely holed up in the Pashtun territory of the south and east. Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which resisted sharing intelligence when terrorists attacked U.S. targets in their countries, have now dumped their computer files in Washington's hands. President Vladimir Putin has promised to share Russia's file on bin Laden, and Moscow is providing useful stuff on terror camp locations and military installations from...
Meanwhile, tribal chieftains such as Achakzai have their own game plan against the Taliban. In Quetta, the elders of the 23 million-strong Pashtun tribe, which is spread across western Pakistan and most of Afghanistan, are moving to bring back Mohammed Zahir Shah, the deposed Afghan King who is living in Rome. In high-walled and guarded villas, these elders receive a stream of whispering chieftains, Afghan ex-army generals, mujahedin commanders and Pakistani officials--all eager recruits for an uprising against the Taliban. "It's happening so fast," says Hamad Karzai, an influential Afghan Pashtun elder who is backing...
...King has its drawbacks. Zahir Shah is 86, and many Afghans resent the fact that throughout the brutal war against the Soviets and the turmoil afterward, he remained aloof from their suffering, silent in his gilded exile. But already a groundswell for his return is growing among the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan along the frontier. Reports are sketchy, but in the southern Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika influential tribal elders are so worried about rising support for the King among their clansmen that they are threatening to burn down the houses of anyone caught switching sides...
...fighters are an alliance in name only. Real control lies with a shifting patchwork of power-hungry warlords, guerrilla warriors and ethnic leaders who came together in the 1980s to fight the Soviet occupation. They make an uneasy blend of minority ethnic groups--Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara--in a predominantly Pashtun country, and include Shi'ite Muslims, despised by the majority Sunnis. As soon as they brought down the Soviet puppet ruler, alliance leaders turned on one another and viciously fought in bloody civil strife. The cosmopolitan capital, once known for its beautiful gardens and monuments, was reduced to rubble...
...shift in the political winds. It is widely expected that a similar dynamic may work against the Taliban once it comes under concerted military pressure. And Pakistan is now reportedly working to court moderate Taliban elements opposed to protecting Bin Laden in the hope of ensuring a majority Pashtun (and perhaps, by extension, Pakistan-friendly) component in a new government...