al-Jazeera reports as of 21h42 Greenwich time that quote “the Taleban have lost control of Qandahar” and that Taleban forces are “retreating from Jalabad after a uprising by its residents against the movement.”
Neither case implicates actual Northern Alliance troops. Apparently last nights reports of fighting in Qandahar were correct and a Pashtu revolt has started. Apparently. Report also indicates Taleban withdrawal away from the cities.
Quite incredible stuff. Where are they retreating to? Into the mountains, the South China Morning Post said this morning, but my geography of Afghanistan is poor - isn’t this into the area held by the southern rebels?
Wow
I was glued to the radio all day yesterday and I was hearing how despite everything, we really didn’t know how the people of Kabul were going to react. It was possible they may have chosen to side with the Taliban since they were the incumbent rulers and they were fighting “foreign aggression”.
But then I saw the pictures of Northern Alliance troops entering Kabul and the people cheering and playing music and cutting off their beards and throwing off their burkas and my heart leapt.
I knew then that we were doing the right thing.
And if the people of Jalalabad and even Kandahar are rebelling then there is real hope that this whole thing might end before the winter.
Oh well, we’ll see I suppose.
Afghanistan is more than half mountains. Multiple chains of the Hindu Kush range, covering all but an area of plains in the far north ( extending into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan ) and the plateau country south of Qandahar. So their are going to be both pro- ( and apparently ) anti-Taliban retreats in different mountainous districts. Just depends what tribes are rebelling and which are backing the Taliban. For example, if it is still uncaptured, I heard tell that the Kunduz region in the northeast, where a large Taliban garrison was cut-off by the victories at Mazr-e-Sharif and Taloquan, is rather pro-Taliban.
At any rate the fall of Qanadahar and Jalalabad to non-NA forces, if true, is really excellent news. I was worried that the rapid advance of the NA might cause nervous Pashtuns to rally to the Taliban. This development is a big victory for the U.S. diplomacy ( by default if nothing else ) if it holds, especially as it will serve as a check on the NA.
I’m pleased 
.
_ Tamerlane
This was in today’s Chicago Tribune. I’d be interested in hearing knowledgeable feedback.
So, what, they just swap sides back and forth? Or is this biased reporting? I don’t know enough about it to tell.
Yep, it’s pretty accurate. I sort of covered this in the Pit thread, but a very similar phenomena happened when the Taliban began their rise. A couple of tough fights ( for Jalalabad and Kabul ), then a surge of defections and rapid collapse of the various factions that now comprise the NA.
The core fighters of any given faction might be pretty loyal to a cause. But the majority of the military manpower in Afghanistan has always consisted of tribal forces, whose loyalties are shifting and uncertain. It’s why this is such a backward and difficult country to control.
It’s also why, back in the 19th century, the Afghan kings formed a standing army recruited heavily from ethnic minorities ( even though they, themselves, were Pashtuns from the Durrani tribe, as indeed are many of the Taliban leadership ) - It was a counter-weight to the Pashtun tribes that were prone to rebel or just withhold support at key points. An experience common to a lot of renaissance and medieval states. One of many parallel examples - the Safavid Shah Abbas the Great, r. 1587-1629, one most of his grewat victories wioth a standing army drawn from minorities like Christian Georgians, that was more reliable and less prone to insubordination than the traditional Qizilbash, tribal Turkish dervishes that had put the Safavids on the throne in the first place.
“won”, not “one”. Jeez. Please ignore the other 80 typos. Thank you .
Lost some control over their own troops but not due to NA advances, according to the BBC. The retreating troops from Kabul created some disarray and Mullah Omar is struggling to maintain control but the Arabs and some Pakistani’s are re-grouping – for now.
If I was an Afghani Taliban fighter, I think I’d be looking for a shave pretty soon – preferably tonight.
That is the question.
If Mullah Omar and his core manage to convince the Pashtun to stick with them because the deal is going to be worse from the NA, then we have some ugly things in front of us, regardless of whether the Taleban control the cities.
According to al-Jazeera, as of 2:52 Greenwitch time, some 5000 “tribal” fighters are marching on Qandahar and (have continued until? --missed that–) about 30 km from it with the intention entering the city in the morning.
Hopefully they are Pashtun.
And here I thought she melted, and all.
Bush-
Good job Northern Alliance, but Pakistan is not happy about you capturing Kabul, can you guys please stop your offensive just outside Kabul?
NA-
We already took Kabul; do you want us to give it back?
Not in the US press yet, but elsewhere I get the feeling that the coalition forces were surprised by the Northern Alliance moves. And the US, Pakistan and other allied forces are scrambling to set up an interim government. Let’s hope the NA does keep it’s promises.
Well, the al-Jazeera report conveyed some… uncooperative language from NA: I forget the exact phrasing right now, but the idea is no outsiders are going to tell us what to do.
Oh well, what’s another briefcase of dollars - I wonder if those NA boys are getting the hang of the new game quite quickly.
The NA claims its presence in Kabul is necessary to prevent reprisals. Unfortunately, some of those reprisals may already be underway at the hands of the NA. Nonetheless, reports of people doffing the repressive accoutrements prescribed by the Taliban give one hope that Afghanistan has turned a corner. I would like to think that this might be a permanent change in this perpetually roiled country. For every Taleban looking to shave, I’m sure someone has a razor ready for them.<insert evil smiley here>
That was, more or less, the quote in the morning’s paper.
Re: reprisals - there was a report of a massacre of Pakistani fighters in Kabul.
So far so good - a large fraction of the population is no longer under Taliban rule, and appears to think that’s an improvement. There will be huge problems to clean up in their wake, but that can be dealt with.
So what happens next? Looks like a given now that the NA will capture the remaining cities, and control most of the population, including almost all the non-Pashtuns. From the point of view of any of the alliance leaders, that looks like a nearly-complete win - they each get what they want, control the people and territory they want, and can look like they’re the heroes (never mind all those airplanes and bombs).
Meanwhile, the Taliban melts into the mountains and caves, among their fellow Pashtuns on both sides of the border, with a lot of support from the Pakistan side. If I were a Northern Alliance leader (does that rate capital letters, btw?), I’d wonder why I’d want to go after them at all. The fighting would be very difficult, the “liberated” Pashtun people wouldn’t be all that deeply grateful and would try to put one of their own in charge anyway. Best let them freeze and starve in their caves, and concentrate on consolidating power in their own regions. Keep putting off the Americans and British who ask for your help hunting in the mountains in return for their earlier military assistance.
Which of course leaves our friend Osama and company(remember him? that’s who we’re trying to get) still on the run, with no good way to get him other than finding and bombing cave entrances. Good luck to us.
To add to Elvis’ note --and it is an excellent one–, I note reports of non-Pashtun ‘backlash’ against NA factions such as Hazars.
All the euphoria forgets that the end of a quasi-conventional war does not mean the end of the war or that it’s all a cake walk from here on.
The Soviets thought that too.
(Which is not to say we are going to be as ham-handed as the Soviets, but mistaking Afghanistan for a nation state gets you into a world of trouble.)
I hope that we can spend at least a little effort in some humanitarian & cosmetic revitalizations, at least to show the muslim population of the world that we are not bent on destroying them as the Taliban have claimed all along. We can lick our own wounds and at the same time help the people in the nation that was largely responsible for 9/11. I’m not talking about building infrastructure, but now that we have a humanitarian pipeline into Kaboul we need to start clothing & feeding people. And bring back thousands (millions?) of those who fleed their homes in fear of the approaching “American Crusades”.
And for gosh sake let’s bulldose that soccer stadium.
Let’s leave the bulldozing to the people who live there. (I know you most likely did not mean that we should literally go in and down the place). I think the important thing is to facilitate self-rule. Since the country has been at war so long, it’s probably difficult to say if they can pull together a peaceful government, but that should be the aim. And I did hear interviews on CBS last night in which NA leaders were calling for a coalition gvmt. consisting of all Afghan factions other than Taleban, and asking for UN help. All good signs.
As far as Osama bin Laden, I heard Rumsfeld talking about Special Forces in Southern Afghanistan looking for him and his bunch as the Taleban fall back to that part of the country. I know they will not stop due to winter conditions either - they have been training for winter work. This is not to say it will be quick and easy, just to say that it sounds like there is some resolve to carry this thing out to it’s purpose - liberating Afghanistan was almost a bi-product, although a very admirable one.
For those who think the Taliban can hole up in the hills and conduct an extended guerrilla war against coalition forces, I have two words: thermal imaging.
It’s going to get mighty cold in the mountains this winter if the Taliban are afraid to start a fire.
Word at ABC News is that bin Laden has abandoned his cave and is on the move. I expect he is scrambling to try to slip across the border (into Pakistan, perhaps?), and that US special forces are working to prevent that from happening.