-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.iht.com/cgi-
bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=46803
>>>Don't forget the opium and the boie-toies in the equation of
civilisation by bombing, a civilisation that exists only at 15K feet
above the people<<<
}}}>Begin
Copyright � 2001 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Bitter Aftertaste in Afghanistan
John F. Burns New York Times Service
Saturday, February 2, 2002
2-Day Battle Is Over, but Country Struggles On Against Past
GARDEZ, Afghanistan The first major battle of the post-Taliban era
has ended after the fighters of the warlord besieging this strategic
city south of Kabul ran out of ammunition and fled the battlefront in
clouds of dust, cursing the warlord to his face for his callousness
in committing them to a fight they were doomed to lose.
The battle was over in two days, but it gave the people of Gardez a
bitter reminder of the past that Afghanistan is trying to escape
after the Taliban's collapse.
When the last shots were fired, about 50 people had been killed and
dozens of others injured. Gardez, a city of 50,000 people already
living in medieval conditions, had new scars, in the form of crumbled
masonry and broken lives and a claim by the defenders that the dead
included half a dozen children, to add to the miseries of decades of
warfare.
The interim administration of Hamid Karzai had named the defeated
warlord, Padsha Khan Zadran, to the post of governor of the region
after reluctantly concluding that the incumbent, Saifullah, who goes
by only one name, lacked sufficient political support to hang on to
the job.
Mr. Saifullah has political ties to the Northern Alliance - the anti-Taliban group
that forms the backbone of the Karzai administration. These ties had proved a
liability among his fellow Pashtuns, the southern tribal gro
up that predominates and that largely backed the Taliban.
But he mustered enough military muscle to drive off the forces of Mr. Zadran, who met
fierce resistance when they tried to enter the city Wednesday and proved unable to
press their assault Thursday.
The defeated Mr. Zadran is seen by many Afghans as a symbol of the brutality of the
last 20 years. So while his humiliation in seeking to take the job to which he had
been appointed clearly illustrated the limits of Mr. K
arzai's authority, it also suggested that Afghanistan is determined to build a
different future.
Both sides insisted that they were supporting the government of Mr. Karzai, and both
sides offered a chorus of vituperation, to anybody who asked, of the Taliban and Al
Qaeda.
Both sides had former Taliban fighters in their ranks, inevitable in a country where
men with guns re- badge themselves in fealty to every new power that comes along.
In terms of raw manpower, they were indistinguishable. Both forces, overwhelmingly,
were composed of men and boys as young as 14 and so poor that they had no shoelaces,
no socks, no gloves for the bitter winter cold, and,
on the besieging side, no food of any kind, and nothing to drink but water running
from the winter snows.
On both days of fighting, American warplanes circled overhead, heedless of Mr.
Zadran's hints to an American reporter that American air power should settle the
battle in his favor because of the presence of what he called
Al Qaeda Arabs among the city's defenders.
The claims seemed unlikely on their face, since American special forces had been
encamped outside Gardez for several weeks without any American military attacks on the
city.
In the end, Mr. Zadran's own forces disowned him, at least as far as it involved his
ambitions in Gardez.
As the sun set, rocket launchers and mortars that the warlord had installed on the
heights above the city to the south fell silent.
For hours, the city had been subjected to heavy shellfire from weapons left behind by
the Soviet troops who had occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s and manned by veterans of
the Muslim guerrilla resistance, men now grizzled
, with white beards and failing eyes.
Within minutes, the scene at the front lines suddenly took on the
shape of a defeated army in headlong flight, with men and boys
streaming down from the hills on foot, scrambling not to fall in the
path of "commanders" who roared past them in the Toyota Hi-Lux
pickups that are the vehicle of choice for bearded men with guns and
at least a little authority in Afghanistan.
Copyright � 2001 The International Herald Tribune
End<{{{
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