IWPR
October 19
he forces of Northern Alliance commander General Abdul Rashid Dostum were close to capturing the airport outside Mazar-e-Sharif this week, and appear set to launch an offensive on the strategic northern town.
The Northern Alliance intends to set up a provisional government there. According to the movement's spokesman Abdullah Abdullah, the new administration is expected to have 120 posts, 50 for the different factions of the anti-Taleban coalition, 50 for representatives of the former Afghan King Zaher Shah and the various Pashtun tribes, and 20 for eminent Afghan émigrés.
The assault on Mazar-e-Sharif follows an apparent change of plan by the Northern Alliance, which, at the beginning of the US-led offensive against the Taleban, had intended to push through and capture Kabul, the stronghold of the nation's Pashtun majority.
The US-led Western coalition feared allowing the Afghan opposition to capture the capital could give them control of the whole country and alienate the majority Pashtuns. A source at Northern Alliance headquarters said it had changed its plans following consultations with the US and its allies.
Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly warned the US that a return of the Northern Alliance to power in Kabul would cause massive turmoil in the country and has counselled caution in the use of air strikes. Musharraf's cooperation is highly valued by Washington, which would want to avoid any kind of Pashtun popular revolt that could topple him.
The recapture of Mazar-e-Sharif will give the anti-Taleban coalition control right along the Afghan-Uzbek border. This will allow US military based at Khanabad airport, 150 km inside Uzbekistan, better access for launching its attacks on Afghanistan, as well as the possibility of using the two military airports at Mazar-e-Sharif, military expert Aleksandr Ramazanov said.
It will also cut the main supply route linking Taleban forces in the northern provinces with their bases in central and south Afghanistan.
Otherwise unremarkable, Mazar-e-Sharif is home to a major Muslim sanctuary, the breathtaking Prophet Ali Mosque with its blue domes and a plaza, filled with thousands of white pigeons. In 1996, the then-president Burhanuddin Rabbani arrived after being forced to flee Kabul by the Taleban, and declared the town the capital of Afghanistan. He fled to Iran shortly after, and on his return set up headquarters in Faizabad in Badakhshan province, where he has been ever since.
General Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, had his headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif in the mid-90s.
His brief reign was marked by clear signs of a personality cult, which his troops enforced around town. They were ruthless to those who showed even a slight sign of opposition.
The general returned from exile last summer and resumed his military activity in Afghanistan. He rallied loyal ethnic Uzbeks in the Balkh and Samangan provinces, launching a second Northern Alliance front against the Taleban.
Although Russia, which supplies military aid to the Northern Alliance, might welcome a Dostum victory at Mazar-e-Sharif, Uzbekistan, which would seem to gain more from it, has shown quite a restrained reaction.
President Karimov not only distances himself from Dostum, denying that Tahskent is helping him, but has also objected to the fact that people refer to him as an Uzbek general. "He is as much an Uzbek general as I am a Chinese general," Karimov told journalists on October 5.
But while publicly distancing itself from him, Tashkent does not ostracise Dostum completely. His family has found a refuge in Uzbekistan and still lives there while Dostum himself feels relatively free to travel to visit them.
The Uzbek leadership's attitude is due to Dostum's reputation for not being a reliable ally and to Karimov's desire not to be seen by the US as being too close to him, one local analyst said.
The restoration of minority rule in northern Afghanistan, which seems weeks or only days away, will effectively create a bipolar power system in the country. Whether or not the south will be controlled by "moderate" branches of the Taleban or by other Pashtun leaders remains to be seen.
To some extent, this system may suit the interests of both the Afghans and their next-door neighbours: Pakistan will be insured against Pashtun turmoil, while the former Soviet Union will acquire a new safety barrier in northern Afghanistan, keeping militant Islamic fundamentalism comfortably away.
However, it can only serve as a starting point for an Afghan settlement and for the country's social rehabilitation. This will require an enormous investment from the international community, which may have to commit itself to some form of "Marshall plan" for Afghanistan, and will require years of patient, painstaking effort.