Word: uzbek
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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...
...contraptions, and the one Bush is trying to drive now is having to make some unscheduled stops. For all the expressions of solidarity following the attacks, locking in the partnerships needed for a full-scale assault required much more than kind words. The U.S. needed access to Omani and Uzbek air bases and Pakistani intelligence and Indian airspace. And while Administration critics, starting with Israel, warned that all these would come at a cost, the Bush Administration also sensed an opportunity. Officials saw a strategic opening, a chance for a new round of realpolitik, which might knit together...
...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...
...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...
...easily dispatched, the transition plan is riddled with perils. The relationship between the United Front and the exiled king has the look of a forced marriage, and even within the UF itself some key players are as renowned for their treachery as for their fighting ability. The fearsome Uzbek leader, General Rashid Dostum, for example, has switched sides more than once over the past decade. And the authority of a monarch not seen in Afghanistan in 28 years (most of the fighters were not born when he went into exile) may not amount to much as old foes and their...