Chapter 2 continues…

The USA also rejected the plea to stop bombings during the month of Ramadan since planners and advisers believed that a winter break could be an advantage to the Taleban. The new US strategy to assist the Northern Alliance helped the latter to capture the strategic city of Mazar-e-Sharif on November 12 killing nearly 200 pro-Taleban Pakistani fighters.

The fall of Kabul was a spectacular achievement. With American bombs blasting Taleban defences and the Northern Alliance ordered to encircle the city, the Taleban leaders of the capital decided to flee. The Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul unopposed on November 13 resulting in large-scale fleeing and defection of the Taleban troops. The Alliance took control of the Presidential Palace, government embassies and other major public buildings. The capture of Kabul was marked by scenes of fighters holding aloft pictures of their slain leader Ahmed Shah Masood and in some areas residents hugging each other, hailing the arrival of the Northern Alliance.
Following Northern Alliance victories in Kabul, rebellion broke out in the southern domains of the Taleban, including their spiritual capital, Kandahar. Pashtun commanders in the south and the east began turning their guns against the Taleban. Heavy fighting raged around Kandahar with US bombing aiding the anti-Taleban factions. And large swathes of the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Logar and Paktia startedcomingunder‘localelders’.

Withbombingsintensifyinginand around Kandahar, Taleban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar decided to hand over Kandahar to Mullah Najibullah on December 6, 2001 and disappeared to an undisclosed location.

In the meantime the historic Agreement on power-sharing was signed in Bonn, Germany on December 5 where four Afghan factions decided to establish an Interim government to be followed by the convening of a Loya Jirga and the establishment of a broad-based transitional government for two years followed by the adoption of a constitution and then elections. Hamid Karzai was thereby appointed the head of the six- month transitional authority.

To be continued…