Word: tajiks
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...cities, but defiant Taliban cadres made their stands. In the north, the estimated 6,000 Taliban troops who retreated to Kunduz from the decimated fronts at Mazar-i-Sharif and Taloqan had their supply lines and escape routes cut off. They had two options: surrender to the Uzbek and Tajik rebels or face death. As Taliban soldiers squabbled over whether to negotiate or fight--the Arabs arguing for the latter--U.S. B-52s on Saturday pulverized them while Alliance commanders promised to attack. Alliance troops in Kunduz killed scores of non-Afghan Taliban fighters--the much-loathed Sudanese, Egyptian, Saudi...
...opposition forces encircled the city, the Taliban mustered no more than sporadic skirmishing. That, and the week's long string of northern defeats, convinced anti-Taliban Pashtun that they could take down the core Taliban warriors in the south and persuade the rest to switch sides; the prospect of Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara fighters sweeping into Pashtun cities was far more harrowing to Taliban soldiers than was surrendering to their Pashtun brothers...
...Over in Kabul, post-Taliban freedom appeared to be something of a mixed blessing. There was music on the streets again, women could shed their burkas and even return to work, and men could finally shave off their beards. But control of the capital by the Tajik forces of the Northern Alliance was being questioned, both by traditional Pashtun rivals and an international community concerned to ensure a broad-based government in Afghanistan, and even by some of their Northern Alliance partners - some 1,000 Hazari troops from the Alliance marched on the capital Thursday, to ensure a share...
...Wednesday to take political charge of areas liberated by the Northern Alliance - although Rabbani desires reinstatement as the president of Afghanistan, he would be fiercely opposed by most Pashtun (the largest ethnic group). Even his Uzbek and Hazari allies in the Northern Alliance are not keen to see the Tajik Rabbani back in charge. Most Kabul residents remember his tenure as a nightmare of infighting between rival factions during which tens of thousands of Afghanis were killed. Alliance forces have already divided the capital into separate zones of control for different ethnic factions, and the northern group's internal divisions...
...Alliance not to advance on Kabul, and Alliance spokesmen insist that they'll stay out of the capital. Some spokesmen, that is. Local commanders have been quoted as saying quite the opposite, and the truth is that the Alliance remains deeply divided within its own ranks. Many of its Tajik elements on the Kabul front support the return to power of President Barnharuddin Rabbani, ousted by the Taliban in 1996 - a scenario repugnant not only to the Pashtuns and their Pakistani backers, but even to other factions of the Northern Alliance. But Russia, set to become the quartermaster-in-chief...