Word: sherzai
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...after weeks of ruthless American bombing, their will was breaking. A black cloud of dust hung over the city, kicked up by U.S. strikes. American special-ops forces joined the anti-Taliban forces commanded by Karzai and Ghul Agha Sherzai, and the merged units closed in on the city from the east and north. Sherzai's 700 men advanced as far as the Kandahar airport before encountering fire from Taliban and foreign Arab fighters making their last stand. During bombing lulls, Taliban soldiers hauled their dead comrades out of the trenches before ushering in new fighters. Those trying...
...Allies still face a last, major hurdle on their way to conquering the Taliban's last outpost: they have failed to rally local tribesmen against the Taliban. Most of the U.S. hopes are pinned on former Kandahar Governor Ghul Agha Sherzai, best known for letting his commanders run riot in the city. From 1992 to 1994, they set up tollbooths every few hundred yards in the city and raped whatever young boys and women they fancied. Recalls one Kandahar resident: "They had dancing boys for their pleasure." These excesses - scorched into the minds of Kandaharis - led to the rise...
...After a trip to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad a month ago, the portly, mule-jawed Sherzai came back to the southern Pakistani city of Quetta throwing around cash. Merchants say he bought himself over 30 new four-wheel vehicles and then set off to an Afghan refugee colony called Jungle Piralzai known for its thieves and opium smugglers. As one associate of Sherkzai's admitted: "Of course, these men are bandits." There, he recruited men for 15,000 rupees ($250 a month), and outfitted them with weapons and at least 40 kilos of hashish, according to this associate...
...Ashazai says that even if the U.S. planes were to flatten Kandahar to the point where Sherzai and his mercenaries could march in, they wouldn't last long. As one Pakistani border official remarked: "If America hands over power to these looters and bandits, the Taliban will be back in six months - and the Afghans will welcome them back...
...Nevertheless, the Taliban think Karzai is a better option than Sherzai and his unruly mercenaries. Kandahar sources say that the Taliban defense minister Mullah Obadullah has sent out feelers to Karzai, offering to hand over the city to him and to Mullah Naqib, a respected former Soviet war commander residing in Kandahar with a large tribal following. "Some commanders are thinking of a change of strategy, but Mullah Omar is overruling everybody." And so far, nobody dares to defy the self-anointed Commander of the Faithful. One Pakistani intelligence officer recently told TIME; "You can finish the Taliban simply...