Word: pashtun
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...planning to visit Pakistan for talks with President Musharraf. Pakistan has traditionally been fiercely opposed to an Alliance backed by old foes such as Russia and India, and had backed the Taliban's five year war against Rabbani's group. But Pakistan is home to the majority of Pashtun, and Islamabad has set itself up as the guarantor of Pashtun interests in Kabul. If Rabbani, whose own claim to power is strongly backed by Russia, can cut a political deal with Musharraf, whatever transpires in Koenigswinter may well prove to be primarily symbolic...
...Across the table from the emissaries of Rabbani and Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum sit three delegations whose co mbined weight isn't even close to that of the Northern Alliance: A deputation sent by the exiled King Zahir Shah; another representing Pakistan-based Pashtun warlords loyal to the king; and a third representing exiled intellectuals and Iran-backed Pashtun mujahedeen commanders. Most notably absent, are not only the Taliban, but also representatives of the Pashtun tribal leaders and warlords who have filled the void left by the retreating zealots in much of southern Afghanistan. The Pashtun are Afghanistan...
...Pakistan-based delegation is clearly connected to some of the Pasthun forces, such as Hamid Karzai's, who are fighting the Taliban in its heartland, and the Iran-backed group may also ultimately carry the aspirations of the fearsome Tehran-based Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. But there are plenty of other Pashtun forces in the field, not represented at Koenigswinter. The Northern Alliance, of course, is far from monolithic, and although its prefers to be known as the "United Front" is not exactly united on just who should govern Afghanistan and how. There has been obvious battlefield competition between Tajik...
...Afghans listened. "Omar doesn't have the same power he had in the past," says Haqiq, the Pashtun commander. "They keep saying he will fight to the end, but we don't think that's true." Across Afghanistan, people deserted the regime as soon as it started losing, exposing its shallow hold on them. "The Taliban showed they were good at enforcing beard lengths," says a Western diplomat, "and that's about it." The first, pivotal defeat of the Taliban, in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, was greased by local Pashtun fed up with taking orders from "these...
...That's why the American targeting of Atef also served to deliver a pointed message to his boss. As American commandos did in northern Afghanistan, U.S. special ops in the south provided Pashtun tribes with advice, ammunition and weapons. But the immediate goal was to divine bin Laden's location with enough precision for the U.S. to deploy its forces?either technological or human, in the air or down into a cave?to deliver the final blow. All week American troops manned checkpoints on the roads running through former Taliban country, seeking clues to bin Laden's coordinates. Special...