Afghanistan: February 14, 2001

Archives

In a major setback for the Taliban, the Northern Alliance captured the central Afghanistan town of Bamiyan. The towns garrison had been reduced recently as the Taliban shifted troops to the northeast to deal with other Northern Alliance attacks. Bamiyan is one of the few areas in Afghanistan with a Shiite majority. Iran has been supplying troops and weapons to the Northern Alliance in order to protect the Afghan Shiias from the fanatical Sunni Taliban. Although the Taliban has controlled some 90 percent of the country for many years, they have been consistently unable to crush the resistance of those non-Sunni and non-Pushtun that resist Taliban domination. The Taliban are largely Pushtun Sunnis. Meanwhile, it has been revealed that India is running a hospital in Tajikistan for the treatment of Northern Alliance wounded (and local civilians.) India is doing this because the Northern Alliance causes Pakistan problems. Pakistan is the Taliban's major ally and as long as the Taliban is having problems with the Northern Alliance, so is Pakistan. 

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close