Word: tajiks
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...battle-tested Northern Alliance may be fighting the Taliban and holding some 10 percent of Afghanistan, but 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...
...armed 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...
...United Front is an alliance of convenience among widely divergent groups ranging from veteran anti-Soviet mujahedeen to commanders of the former Soviet-backed regime - a series of Uzbek, Tajik and Hazari militias based on ethnic lines, united mainly by an enmity to the Taliban and the majority Pashtun ethnic group they represent. Other than that alliance of convenience, they are extremely wary of one another. And nobody is going to make the mistake of calling them "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers," as President Reagan famously said of their mujahedeen forebears in the 1980s...
...pipeline will run to the ocean, gives Russia, Iran and Pakistan a compelling interest in influencing the future of their Afghan neighbors. The Russians, through their clients in the former Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, have supplied arms and on occasion even air support to the Uzbek and Tajik militias, while Iran has supported their fellow Shiite Hazaras in the west. But Pakistan, erstwhile sponsor of the Taliban and currently the West's most important ally in efforts to take down Bin Laden and his Al Qaida network, is hostile to the idea of a United Front takeover, insisting...
...Putin's decision may prove crucial to the U.S. effort. Overflight rights and the use of bases in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (where the Kagaity air base is just some 12 miles from the Afghan border) are likely to facilitate U.S. operations in the region. Tajik and Uzbek leaders had originally offered their facilities to the U.S., but withdrew their offer under pressure from Moscow. Moscow had cooperated with Washington during Desert Storm in 1991, sharing intelligence with the U.S. and providing a Russian air force reconnaissance AWAC-type plane. This time, Moscow's cooperation appears to be going further - though...