Taliban's Allies Lost in Strange City

By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, November 11, 2001; Page A27

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Nov. 10 -- When Afghan rebels came racing on horseback and foot into the ancient city of Mazar-e Sharif yesterday, they suddenly discovered how quickly Taliban fighters had abandoned the town.

According to accounts today from Northern Alliance commanders and residents in the city, Taliban soldiers retreated so swiftly, they left behind hundreds of recently arrived Pakistani volunteers who had come to fight with the Taliban. The Pakistanis were abandoned near the city's central blue-tiled mosque.

Fired with the zeal of the call to holy war, they had crossed the border from Pakistan and arrived in Mazar-e Sharif just two days ago.

When their Taliban commanders left them behind, "they didn't know the city, and they didn't know where to go," said Mohammed Hasham Saad, the Northern Alliance envoy in Tashkent, who received detailed reports from the embattled city.

The trapped Pakistanis tried to hide, taking refuge in two buildings on opposite sides of the grand square that serves as the city's center. One was Sultan Razia, a girls' religious school. The other, ironically, was the mansion of a former rebel commander.

Outside, the streets were filled with the shouts of Northern Alliance soldiers who chased through the byways, searching for Taliban stragglers, according to Khair Mohammed, 23, who runs a small telephone service in the city.

"In every street, the Northern Alliance soldiers were yelling, 'Stop, stop!' to anyone they thought was a Taliban," he said by telephone today. "And they were very happy. Guys who went to the mountains three years ago returned to their homes for the first time. Their families are delighted to see them."

Habibullah Anvari, an officer with the forces of Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, one of two Northern Alliance commanders who led the raid, said enemy stragglers either surrendered or were killed. "Those who did not fight against us surrendered by raising their hands. Those who did not surrender were killed," he said.

"There are bodies laying on the roads here," he added. "I think about 200 Taliban died. I don't know the exact number. We didn't collect the bodies."

It did not take long for someone to identify the hiding places of the abandoned Pakistani holy warriors. As dawn broke today, they found themselves peering out from the buildings, surrounded by Northern Alliance soldiers.

The grim pattern of Afghanistan's long wars is one of bloody revenge by the victors. But the Northern Alliance forces know they are in an intense international spotlight, and have been warned by their commanders not to take revenge. "We didn't want to kill them. We surrounded the Pakistanis and waited for them to come out," Saad insisted. "We took them to jail. Our courts will deal with them."

Dostum offered a different version when contacted by telephone tonight.

"Some were captured, and some were killed," he said simply.

The city woke up today and cautiously watched the new authorities in town. Shops in the bazaar that rings the central mosque were closed in the morning, a prudent reaction to uncertain times. Saad said sheep and goats were slaughtered by the families of the returned Northern Alliance soldiers. Other people went to the mosque, which honors Ali, a relative of the prophet Muhammad, to give thanks for the rebel victory, Saad said.

Khair Mohammad found himself wondering about one lapse of tradition. Through the years, Mazar-e Sharif, which means "Great Grave," has been captured so often by various armies that certain customs have developed for marking victories.

"It doesn't matter if the city is captured by Taliban or the Northern Alliance," Mohammad said. "Usually when troops enter the city they gather people by using megaphones, and call a meeting to tell the people that they have captured the city.

"This time," he fretted, "there was no meeting."

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2001