Word: uzbeks
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...facility also tested smallpox, forms of plague and other, less commonly known, killer germs. "This is the best stuff the Soviets were able to come up with in 30 years of research," says a Western analyst in the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Before the scientists left Vozrozhdeniye, they tried to kill all the lethal spores they had cultured. With anthrax, they failed. "Anthrax is particularly persistent," says the analyst. "It's still there, but there's no telling where it is, no tubes labeled 'anthrax.'" Washington has had a cleanup of Vozrozhdeniye on its Central Asia to-do list for years...
...late: Vozrozhdeniye has been unguarded for a decade. The shrinking of the Aral Sea has revealed a peninsula that makes the island accessible by wading. The Uzbek state petroleum company even conducted test drills for natural gas. Although Washington believes no anthrax has been extracted, no one can be sure. "God only knows," says the analyst. "There's been nobody out there watching...
...They won. According to accounts given to Time by Alliance officials, 3,500 rebels serving under Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum, 47, pushed the Taliban out of Kishindi with a 16-hour assault that left 200 Taliban and an unknown number of Alliance troops dead. To the west, forces loyal to Ustad Atta Mohammed, another Alliance commander, lost 30 men in a barrage of Taliban tank fire but seized the outlying village of Aq Kuprik. From there the Alliance's long-promised and much delayed march on Mazar-i-Sharif gathered an irresistible momentum. Some Taliban soldiers ran and hid, others...
...substantially change the strategic equation in Afghanistan. The fall of Mazar appeared to signal a collapse of the Taliban's hold on northern Afghanistan, with Alliance troops quickly capturing two important towns to the north and east, and more importantly, almost immediately opening up a land corridor from the Uzbek border. That would allow massive shipments of humanitarian aid to be immediately shipped to hundreds of thousands of Afghans facing starvation on the northern plain. It would also allow the U.S. to ship tons of military hardware to the Alliance, and possibly begin deploying its own forces in larger numbers...
...Time for Plan B. The first major ground battle, near Mazar-i-Sharif, took place last Monday, when hundreds of Northern Alliance troops serving under two commanders, Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum and Tajik general Mullah Ustad Mohammed Atta, swept toward the city and the 20,000 entrenched Taliban troops protecting it. The Alliance forces advanced to within 12 miles of Mazar, but a fierce Taliban counterattack led to savage street battles; Alliance forces managed to hold their front line but failed to advance much further. It's unlikely that the Alliance will march on Mazar anytime soon. The Taliban...