Nadeem’s comments came after a weekend in which officials of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance claimed they had followed up on Friday’s capture of Mazar-e Sharif with lightning-fast advances to the north, east and west of city, gaining control of nearly the entire region north of the Hindu Kush mountain range. The spokesmen said on Saturday that they had secured border crossings with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and were on the verge of linking up with Alliance forces in the northeast of the country, and on the Kabul front to the southeast.
Their claims were unconfirmed by either U.S. or independent sources, but if true, they signify a dramatic shift in the strategic picture in Afghanistan. Mohammed Hashan-Saad, the Northern Alliance’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, told journalists Saturday afternoon that after seizing Mazar-e Sharif the day before, Alliance fighters had broken out onto the northern plain and fought through the night and into the day, driving Taliban away from the northern borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. At the same time, coordinated attacks launched from the southeastern and southwestern flanks of Alliance territory south of Mazar captured strategic towns as much as 200 kilometers to the east and west the city.
Even more importantly, he said the Alliance had secured the Afghan end of the only bridge across the Amu Darya river to Uzbekistan, and the Heyraton barge ferry port, both of which were used to supply the Soviet Army’s operations in Afghanistan.
To the east, Saad said Alliance troops pushed through the crossroads town of Tashqurgan towards the strategic city of Kunduz, which is still under Taliban control. He said they had also seized the towns of Sher Khan, Imam Sahib, and Qezel Qal’a, along the border with Tajikistan, and were fighting their way toward Kunduz to the south. At the same time Alliance forces in the east attacked westward towards Taloqan, some 60 kilometers east of Kunduz.
Further south, forces belonging to Alliance general Ostad Atta Mohammed came out of the mountains and fought through the night to capture the town of Samangan, then the city of Pol-i-Khomri, on the main north-south road leading to the Salang pass. As of Saturday afternoon, Saad claimed they had established new front lines to the south of Pol-i-Khomri, and to the north near the city of Baglan, where fierce fighting had been reported.
On all fronts, Saad said the ground advances were preceded and largely made possible by U.S. air strikes, directed from the ground by U.S. special forces units. Saad and the Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah told journalists that the Alliance had captured large amounts of Taliban weaponry, including 20 tanks, which would help them continue on the offensive.
Meanwhile, Alliance representatives in Pakistan said residents of Mazar-e Sharif were rejoicing at the retreat of the Taliban militia which had controlled the city since 1998. “There is music, there is dancing–these all had been banned under the Taliban,” said Zakki, an Islamabad-based spokesman for Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of three Northern Alliance generals to spearhead the takeover.
While ruthless to his enemies and insubordinate underlings, the Uzbek general Dostum remains well-liked by many ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks in Mazar because his pre1997 reign had few of the Taliban’s fanatical touches. He’d allowed music, liquor and even university education for women, who were not compelled to wear the shapeless head-to-ankle burqa that the Taliban forced on them. And the mustachioed commander had lived in a modern villa with a pool, multiple satellite phones, and an armored Cadillac. Zakki, who has communicated since the Taliban retreat with Dostum and citizens in Mazar by satellite phone, said, “Men are shaving their beards. Women are burning their burqas. All of these things are happening in Mazar-e-Sharif.”
While these reports also could not be confirmed independently, the mood on the street in Pakistan among Afghan refugees who came from Mazar-e-Sharif was jubilant. “I’m so happy. When Dostum was in Mazar we had dance clubs and women wore pants–even short pants. It was just like living in America, " said a Dari-speaking female entertainer from Mazar who now lives in Peshawar. “It’s time to burn our burqas; my hometown is free!”
The Alliance’s gains affected the local Afghan currency too, with the afghani strengthening between 10 and 15 percent on news of the Taliban’s retreat from Mazar. From a rate of 42,000 to the dollar on Friday, the Afghani rose to 37,300 in the money-changers’ bazaar in Kabul on Saturday. In the Pakistani frontier town of Peshawar, some 300 money-changers in Chowkyadgar Market were still briskly selling huge bricks of Afghanis late Saturday.
Half a dozen money-changers lugged around bulging sacks of Afghan currency. The raucous throng in the market–at least 500 strong–was so dense that police had to beat people back with sticks just to keep traffic flowing. “I’m happy: I’m a businessman and I’m making money,” said money-changer Modir, who had bought Afghanis yesterday at 142 Pakistani rupees per 100,000–and was now selling them at 162. Earlier in the day, speculators had already brought the rate down from a high of 165. But the trend at the moment was still buy, buy, buy. “Maybe the Taliban will fall soon,” speculated Modir, as an elderly Uzbek man trundled past with huge stacks of afghanis cradled with both arms, “Then the Afghani will get even stronger.”
Marketplace jubilation, aside, however, it is far from clear if the Alliance can hold on to all its gains. Saad claims that the Northern Alliance units have “more than 10,000 men,” but even with captured Taliban equipment, Alliance lines of communication and supply are stretched thin, and it is not certain that it could withstand a concerted Taliban counterattack.
Nor should the Northern Alliance be seen as a unified national army. The anti-Taliban forces are in fact a collection of different ethnic, religious, and political factions, commanded by local and regional warlords, but bound together in the face of the common threat presented by the Taliban. Now, with the Taliban allegedly on the run, the big question may be whether Alliance generals will be willing to share captured tanks, artillery, and ammunition–and, indeed, power–with others in their group.
