Integrity Score 380
No Records Found
Chapter 2 continues…
The failure was followed by massive ethnic cleansing as the Taleban opened fire on the non- Pashtun civilian residents while retreating. However the Taleban failure in Mazar led to a new political and military development in Afghanistan that caused a new wave of mass mobilization in the area. This defeat lessened their chances of establishing a national government and exposed their weakness. Moreover the Northern Alliance emerged as an equally important military and political force in Afghanistan.
They attempted to use this military victory politically and continued to proclaim themselves as the rightful government of Afghanistan. However they failed to establish themselves as a stronger and more powerful front against the Taleban. Many areas as a result of such internal conflict amongst Uzbek leaders suffered from the lack of security resulting from the abuse of power by the local armed forces. The control of highways like the Hiratan highway by local armed forces converted to bandit-like groups who extorted money by such control of commercial routes led to unrest in the local communities.
The Taleban waited for the right moment to strike back and waited patiently to take advantage of the conflict between the Uzbek leaders. The Taleban deployed a large number of forces across the front line against the opposition troops in the provinces of Badghis and Faryab. After a month of fighting, they advanced towards the north capturing Shiberghan and Sar-e-Pul, 35 kilometers from Mazar, also the main natural gas reserve in the country. On August 8, 1998, the Taleban forces attacked the Uzbek positions and advanced rapidly towards Mazar-e-Sharif seizing the city. In contrast to their previous campaign, the Taleban relied on the Pushtun ethnic groups in Balkh and used them as local guides.
A revengeful operation for the previous year’s losses in Mazar was launched against the civilian population and the Hazaras were the primary target. Human Rights violations in the form of killing of males by door to door survey and taking the women as concubines for the Taleban fighters became common.
To be continued…