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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...
...Afghan refugees who should rule their country, you get four different answers. Ghulan Sarwar, 50, favors the King. Mahmood Ayub, 25, says only the Taliban can maintain peace and proper Islam. He would go and fight for it now if he had food for his family. Twentyish Amanullah is Uzbek and says former President Burhanuddin Rabbani must rule because he is a family relative. Mohammed Daoud, in his 50s, feels betrayed by every leader and trusts no government to bring the peace and safety he yearns for. "Only God," he says, "will ever give us a peaceful Afghanistan...
...during which roughly 200 of his men were captured and an undetermined number killed. But U.S. jets had since started bombing Taliban positions and munitions in and around Mazar-i-Sharif. And this time, Atta would be accompanied by the forces of General Rashid Dostum, the notorious and ruthless Uzbek warlord who was being advised by U.S. military strategists. From his hillside camp overlooking the barren plains between him and his target, Atta forecast nothing less than annihilation for the Taliban: "We'll kill them...
...battle to wrest control over Mazar-i-Sharif will be fierce and bloody, and the outcome far from certain. The city is, in every sense, occupied by the Taliban. The majority of its residents are Uzbek and Hazari, and the Taliban can only count on the support of a few Pashtun villages on the outskirts of the town. For the rest, they rule by fear, and Northern Alliance leader General Rashid Dostum believes his Uzbek supporters in the city will function as a fifth column once the battle begins. That may not be enough...
...them, thousands of Taliban fighters were killed in the ensuing uprising - many of them executed by suffocation in shipping containers or being dropped alive into wells which were then bulldozed over. When the Taliban recaptured the city a year later, it exacted a terrible revenge, butchering some 6,000 Uzbek and Hazari civilians. The Taliban fighters defending the city are unlikely to expect any mercy from the Northern Alliance, giving them every incentive to fight to the last man. Still, right now, Mazar-i-Sharif looks like the best bet for the Alliance, and its U.S. backers, to show that...