Word: tajiks
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...that it will not be bound by the deal. AFGHANISTAN Forces of Good President Hamid Karzai outlined plans for a 70,000 strong national army paid for by Britain and the U.S. The announcement came as the forces of rival warlords Amanullah Khan, a Pashtun, and Ismail Khan, a Tajik, pounded each other's positions near Shindand airbase in western Afghanistan. Karzai admitted he will not be able to exercise authority much beyond Kabul until the army is fully formed. INDONESIA Tightening Net Police arrested Ali Ghufron, a.k.a. Mukhlas, the suspected mastermind behind the Bali bombing and a senior commander...
...primary beneficiary of the Taliban's rapid collapse had been the ethnic-Tajik "Pansjiri" faction of the Northern Alliance, the main U.S. proxy force which seized Kabul last Fall (against Washington's wishes) and became the dominant component of Karzai's government (much to the president's discomfort, although their power on the ground - and the reluctance of the U.S. to challenge it - leaves him little choice). Despite his own Pashtun roots, Karzai's ability to secure support in his heartland is imperiled by the disproportionate Tajik power in Kabul. That suits his Pashtun enemies: Since the Spring, the Taliban...
...shift risks being seen as a slap in the face to extremely powerful interests in Kabul. In the first days after the Taliban's fall Karzai kept a small band of Pashtun soldiers from his Kandahari home close to him. But tensions with the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance forces, who fought the Taliban for close to six years and have now assumed control of much of the government, meant the future president had to send his soldiers away. Since then his personal security has been in the hands of the most formidable Northern Alliance commander in Afghanistan, defense minister Mohammed...
Local traders and drug barons, many of whom had been supporters of Qadir, were furious. Moreover, although Qadir was vocal about the rights of the Pashtun, some viewed his cooperation with the Tajik-dominated regime in Kabul--and his lack of support for the reinstatement of Afghanistan's king, Zahir Shah--as a betrayal."My efforts have been to urge people here to have patience," Qadir told TIME in June...
...Much was riding on Qadir, a former mujahedin hero of the anti-Soviet resistance. As the leading representative of the country's disenfranchised Pashtun majority, Qadir was the centerpiece of President Hamid Karzai's maneuvers to integrate Pashtuns who have been effectively excluded from power by the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance that defeated the Taliban. Now that plan is threatened. "This has been caused by enemies of peace and stability," says Karzai's foreign affairs spokesman Omar Samad...