Mohammed Hashan-Saad, the ambassador of the Northern Alliance government to Uzbekistan, said in Tashkent that commanders on the Mazar front had told him their forces have advanced to less than three miles from outlying villages and six to seven miles from the city itself.
Saad told NEWSWEEK that U.S. airstrikes had been extremely effective in pounding the Taliban lines in advance of attacks by the forces of the Northern Alliance generals Rashid Dostum, Atta Mohammed and Mohammed Muhaqiq. He claimed that while the Alliance casualty toll was only three or four soldiers killed and 10 injured in recent days, sources in the Taliban-controlled town had reported more than 300 dead and 500 wounded in the Taliban ranks. “Our people there told [the] U.S. that this morning the Taliban brought in 300 dead Pakistanis, Arabs, and Pashtounis [Pashtuns],” he said.
In at least a partial confirmation of this report, the pro-Taliban Pakistani Islamic militant group Harkat Jihad-i-Islami announced today that 85 of its volunteers had been killed by U.S. airstrikes near Mazar-e Sharif.
Saad’s information cannot be independently confirmed. But if the casualty figures are as one-sided as reported, they would suggest that the Alliance is letting the airstrikes decimate the Taliban lines, eliminating almost all opposition before advancing on the devastated positions.
Saad said that Alliance forces had pushed through Kishinde, Aq Quprak, Sholgara and the Zari district south of the city and now control a front line from Marmol and Shadian in the southeast to positions less than three miles from the villages of Chemtal and Mir Qasem to the southwest of the city. Rashid Dostum’s forces had lost Marmol a few weeks ago after his advance stalled when his troops ran out of ammunition.
The ambassador also claimed that more than 1,000 Taliban troops had defected to the forces of Gen. Atta Mohammed in the past week. In addition, the Alliance forces have taken sufficient weapons and supplies from captured Taliban warehouses to enable them to push on and take Mazar-e Sharif. He said that more than 10,000 Alliance troops are regrouping and preparing for another assault on the outskirts of the city, which he claimed is defended by no more than 3,000 Taliban fighters. He said that the next two or three days could see the fall of Mazar-e Sharif.
Saad’s optimism may be misplaced. Relentlessly upbeat military assessments are nothing new from Northern Alliance representatives, and are often followed shortly afterward by news of Taliban counterattacks. (Indeed, the Taliban has denied losing the district and told the Afghan Islamic Press that three opposition attacks south of Mazar-e Sharif had failed. In addition, the Taliban’s Bakhtar news agency said the Northern Alliance remained as many as 15 miles south of Mazar-e Sharif. )
Still, this is the first time that Alliance forces on the Mazar front have benefited from coordinated airstrikes called in and directed by U.S. special forces units: communications specialists and forward air controllers. Both U.S. and Alliance officials have said that several such special forces units have been working together with the Alliance for several weeks. Saad said that there were “not so many” U.S. forces working together with the Alliance south of Mazar. He said they were not training forces, but rather were simply coordinating the airstrikes and close air support for the Alliance push.
Coordination between U.S. airstrikes and Alliance forces on the ground began after a meeting between Alliance Commander in Chief General Fahim and the U.S. Central Command commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe two weeks ago, Saad said. But even with U.S. air support, it may not be an easy fight. At the moment, if Alliance claims are to be believed, its troops have descended from the mountains to the south of the city, but still have several miles of flat ground to cross before reaching its outskirts. And once they have reached the city, the advantage of massive air power will be nullified by the need to advance into warrens of narrow streets and alleyways.
Mazar-e Sharif is no stranger to bitter fighting. When the Taliban first took it some four years ago, Alliance troops withdrew into the homes and alleys of the city, and fighting street by street, house by house, killed more than 2,000 Taliban troops, and temporarily recaptured the town.
Pentagon spokesmen described the situation on the ground near Mazar as “fluid,” with front lines moving rapidly back and forth. “I have seen reported by many in the media that this is a great gunfight going on in the vicinity of Mazar-e Sharif,” Franks said in a briefing Thursday. “It’s a bit early for us to characterize this as the success … but yes, there is a big fight going on in the vicinity.”
Despite their advances, the Alliance forces have not yet been able to cut the main roads between Mazar and the cities of Kunduz to the east and Herat to the west. In addition, there are reports that the Taliban have been reinforcing Mazar, pulling in troops from other parts of the country. Even Alliance sources on the distant Kabul front have been telling reporters the fall of Mazar could be as much as three or four weeks away.
Nevertheless, Saad, who says he speaks with commanders on the Mazar front on a daily basis, remains optimistic. He pointed out that while the majority of Taliban fighters are ethnic Pashtuns, reinforced by Arab Al Qaeda units and Pakistani volunteers, more than 90 percent of the population of Mazar-e Sharif is Tajik. The remainder of the population is mostly ethnic Uzbeks and Hazaras. Saad claimed that the Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara fighters from the Alliance will be met with open arms by the population once they drive the Taliban out.
Saad confirmed the reports of American helicopters at the Alliance rear headquarters of Dara-e Suf, some 60 miles to the south of Mazar-e Sharif, saying “there are a lot of aircraft flying there.” Military sources say that U.S. special forces are making regular flights into Dara-e Suf and other locations, bringing in ammunition, equipment and the additional special-forces units promised by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last week. Pentagon officials even acknowledged that the U.S. was flying in food for Alliance fighters’ horses and that special-forces soldiers of the world’s most technologically sophisticated military force had watched their allies launch cavalry charges against Taliban tanks and artillery positions.
Saad said that taking Mazar is essential for the Alliance forces, describing it as “the key” to northern Afghanistan. The largest city in the north of the country, Mazar sits on the main east-west road and has two large airfields that could prove useful as forward bases for U.S. air operations and humanitarian aid flights. In addition, it is near to the borders of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The only all-weather road and rail links into the north of the country cross the Amu Darya river from Uzbekistan and run straight down to Mazar, 40 miles south. The Uzbekistan bridgehead and huge ferry port were build in the ’80s to supply the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. Soon they could be used to bring in essential food, humanitarian aid, military equipment and supplies for Alliance forces, and possibly U.S. troops.
Saad said that the first task for the Alliance in the liberated city would be to repair its infrastructure, in particular the electricity grid, which currently only serves a third of the city. Then they would move on to hospitals, schools and roads.
But Mazar has not fallen yet. There are days–and probably weeks–of fighting ahead. And as the battle continues, Afghans and Americans alike should remember the translation of the name of Mazar-e Sharif. Its meaning: graveyard of the righteous.
