Word: warlords
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...Across the table from the emissaries of Rabbani and Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum sit three delegations whose co mbined weight isn't even close to that of the Northern Alliance: A deputation sent by the exiled King Zahir Shah; another representing Pakistan-based Pashtun warlords loyal to the king; and a third representing exiled intellectuals and Iran-backed Pashtun mujahedeen commanders. Most notably absent, are not only the Taliban, but also representatives of the Pashtun tribal leaders and warlords who have filled the void left by the retreating zealots in much of southern Afghanistan. The Pashtun are Afghanistan...
...Pakistan-based delegation is clearly connected to some of the Pasthun forces, such as Hamid Karzai's, who are fighting the Taliban in its heartland, and the Iran-backed group may also ultimately carry the aspirations of the fearsome Tehran-based Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. But there are plenty of other Pashtun forces in the field, not represented at Koenigswinter. The Northern Alliance, of course, is far from monolithic, and although its prefers to be known as the "United Front" is not exactly united on just who should govern Afghanistan and how. There has been obvious battlefield competition between Tajik...
...will be enough left for al-Qaida to run its international terrorist operations. Also, the Taliban now have the "infidels" where they want them - not up in the sky, but on the ground in Afghanistan." Felgenhauer's cheerily predicts that Afghanistan will now break down into a "maze of warlord-led tribal fiefdoms" each financed by the drug trade and looting international aid. He foresees the Americans facing the same basic problem as the Russians experienced in Afghanistan: "that they never knew for sure who was their ally...
...even as they vanquished the common enemy in 1992, the mujahedeen factions set upon each other, launching a ferocious civil war in which some 50,000 people are believed to havebeen killed. The issue was simply power, and its distribution both across different ethnic groups and among rival warlords within particular ethnic groups. In 1992, the victorious mujahedeen had agreed to appoint Tajik leader Burhanuddin Rabbani as president for one year. But Rabbani held on for four years, during which time the forces of Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar waged a vicious artillery campaign that turned the capital into rubble...
...Imagine the difficulties. U.S. special forces happen upon a cave entrance having been pointed there by a local Afghan warlord thinking about all the Toyota pickups he could buy with the $25 million reward. There's a fierce shootout and the terrorist-in-chief goes down in a hail of bullets. Or the Air Force is summoned to finish the job with a bunker-buster bomb. The moment of vengeance has arrived, even possibly "closure" for the loved ones of his victims. But two weeks later, there "he" is again on Al Jezeera, wearing the flak jacket and linens...