Some Report Taliban Fighters Leaving Stronghold for Mountains

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and John Pomfret Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, November 14, 2001; Page A22

CHAMAN, Pakistan, Nov. 13 -- The Taliban's decision to retreat from Afghanistan's capital and northern regions set off a wave of panic in Kandahar, a large southern city that is the power base of the hard-line Islamic militia, fleeing residents said today at the Pakistani border.

Several residents said they witnessed numerous pickup trucks laden with Taliban fighters, many armed with automatic weapons and rocket launchers, entering Kandahar early this morning. By the afternoon, though, many of those soldiers had left the city for nearby mountains, according to Kandahar residents, aid workers and anti-Taliban opposition leaders.

It was unclear tonight whether the Taliban still had a significant presence in Kandahar and whether it intended to fully withdraw from there, as it did from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday night. Aid workers in contact with people in Kandahar said most Taliban fighters had departed, but leaders of ethnic Pashtun tribes who oppose the Taliban said the radical Islamic militia remained in control of the city.

"Kandahar is still in the hands of the Taliban," said Sardar Mohammed Akram, a tribal commander. "But many of them are running into the mountains."

Taliban leaders also have fled from several provinces south and west of Kabul, according to Afghan officials inside Afghanistan and in Pakistan. But the officials said many mid-level Taliban officials remained in the provinces.

At least two groups from the Durrani branch of the Pashtuns, the Popolzai and the Mohammedzai tribes, were massing outside the city this afternoon, tribal officials said. The tribal fighters are hoping to take control of Kandahar should the Taliban leave, but they will fight if the militia opts to dig in, the officials said.

"Kandahar is so important to them," Akram said of the Taliban. "It's hard to imagine that they would just give it up like they did with Kabul."

But fears that the Taliban might flee or be defeated by opposition forces have clearly spooked the city, residents said. Many said they feared a rash of lawlessness and retribution killings.

"The people are very scared," said Ghulam Farooq, a laborer who crossed into Pakistan this afternoon. "They worry about the people who will topple the Taliban. Everyone is saying, 'When they come, the looting will start.' "

Farooq said the alarm began over the weekend, when reports began trickling in about the fall of Mazar-e Sharif and other cities in the north. When news of the Taliban's retreat from Kabul reached Kandahar, he said, it shocked many residents.

"We were perplexed," he said. "The Taliban kept saying they were stronger than the opposition. They deceived us."

Many Kandahar residents interviewed at the border town of Chaman, Pakistan, said that they are not particularly fond of the Taliban but that they supported its efforts to crack down on street crime. "The Taliban gave us peace and tranquillity that we did not have for years," said Abdul Azim, a baker who lives in a small town north of Kandahar.

Before the Taliban assumed control of Kandahar in 1994, the city was divided into six zones, each controlled by a rival warlord. There were 18 checkpoints between the Pakistani border and the city limits at which armed men would extract bribes from travelers.

If the Northern Alliance opposition movement or anti-Taliban tribal leaders assume control of the city, Azim said, he and his neighbors worry that they will "do the same things as they did before."

"There will be looting, plundering, stealing, murdering," he predicted. Even so, he said, he would welcome the Taliban's downfall.

"The Taliban were too controlling of the people," he said. "We want our freedoms back."

Although Northern Alliance commanders have indicated their intention to push into southern parts of the country, officials and diplomats said the greatest and most immediate threat to the Taliban in Kandahar could come from Pashtun tribesmen. Anti-Taliban tribal leaders said the Northern Alliance victories have helped to increase popular support for their opposition movements, partly from a desire not to have a post-Taliban government dominated by the alliance, which is composed largely of ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and other non-Pashtun tribal groups.

"The Pashtuns do not want the Northern Alliance to take control in the south," said Janabi Sayeb, a leader of the Popolzai tribe.

Opposition to the Taliban among the Popolzais is being led by Hamid Karzai, a former Afghan deputy foreign minister who has been receiving military and financial support from the United States. A brother of Karzai said today that several Popolzai commanders already have infiltrated Kandahar and are working with forces loyal to former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Shirzai, a Pashtun leader and vocal Taliban opponent. Witnesses reported that several hundred armed men departed for the border from an area near Gul Agha's house in the Pakistani city of Quetta tonight.

Afghans who crossed into Pakistan today said several hundred opposition fighters had taken control of the Kandahar airport, but those reports could not be independently confirmed.

"I would not be surprised if tomorrow you hear that Kandahar is no longer in the hands of the Taliban," said Yusuf Pashtun, an aide to Gul Agha. "I don't know how much longer they can keep their morale."

In several provinces southwest of Kabul, tribal elders were negotiating over the formation of local peacekeeping forces to avoid a power vacuum and prevent the Northern Alliance from expanding its influence.

In Logar province, just south of Kabul, local leaders met today following the retreat of senior Taliban officials from that area and issued a statement that they did not want the Northern Alliance entering their region, according to local sources contacted by telephone.

Even some non-Pashtun leaders in the south have objected to Northern Alliance advances.

"Unfortunately, some factions have taken advantage of the situation to seize territory and potentially destabilize the country," said Mustafa Kazimi, an official in Bamian province who represents the Hezb-i-Wahdat party of ethnic Hazaras, descendants of Mongol tribes that invaded Afghanistan 1,000 years ago. "We are against that. We do not want Afghanistan to repeat its ugly history."

Like many Pashtun tribal chiefs, Kazimi said leading Afghans need to join in a nationwide meeting to determine the future of the country, rather than cede authority to the Northern Alliance.

"It risks destabilizing Afghanistan," he said. "We need a broad-based government that will represent the will of all of Afghanistan's people, not just something that has been backed for the last two weeks by the U.S.A."

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Answers

0810 - Just clicked on the BBC site and I see a little ticker: Northern Alliance is saying Taliban has lost control of Kandahar.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

I think the Taliban's true colors are showing.

Robbers and theives, along with the yellow of cowardice. They tried to talk a good game, but...

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Did anyone else see footage of the Taliban officials vacating their empbassy in Islamabad yesterday? They looked very unhappy.

Alliance Envoy Says Kandahar Falls to Opposition

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (Reuters) - Northern Alliance ambassador in Tajikistan Said Ibrohim Hikmat told reporters that the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar fell into the hands of the opposition and tribal rebels Wednesday.

``Today the forces of the Northern Alliance entered Kandahar,'' the ambassador said.

``They went in with the support of the local population which was rebelling,'' he said. ``The town is now under the control of the northern alliance. There are no Taliban in the city.''

The report could not be independently confirmed but one tribal leader said the Taliban had thrown a defensive circle around Kandahar and would fight off any attempt to capture the city.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001