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COVER STORY: DESPATCH FROM
AFGHANISTAN
Autumn Of Despair
The mood in northern Afghanistan is sombrely hopeful
as the alliance watches US moves to decide its strategy
By Raj Chengappa in Panjshir Valley
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READYING FOR MORE: Northern Alliance soldiers listen while
an instructor explains the working of a T-55 tank
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It is called the
old way to Kabul. A decade ago, from the Panjshir Valley it took just
an hour to reach Afghanistan's beleaguered capital by car. Since then,
the road has been under constant attack from warring factions that have
tried to wrest control over this strategic stretch of tarmac. Surprisingly,
it is better maintained than most Indian roads. After driving three days
on perilous dirt tracks through the towering Hindukush mountains to reach
Panjshir, it feels like a superhighway.
A few kilometres down the road the scars of
war are clearly visible. Blown up tanks and armoured personnel carriers
litter the pavements. At two places concrete bridges have been destroyed.
Narrow steel plates serve as uncomfortable stopgaps. As you drive down,
the high mountains of the Panjshir soon give way to the bushy plains of
Shomali. Kabul lies hidden by low-lying hills.
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DEVASTATED LIVES: A family in Kabul searches
for belongings in the ruins of their homes
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It has been a fortnight since the US rained tons
of explosives on the capital. Yet villages in Kabul's outskirts go about
life with an odd normalcy. Hawkers selling apples and grapes crowd the
roadsides. Yellow painted Russian-built Volga taxis ply the roads, their
drivers displaying the same disdain for rules as their Delhi counterparts.
Just 30 km short of the city, habitation thins.
Two giant containers block the road. This is the dividing line of control
between the Northern Alliance, the resistance army that holds the Panjshir,
and the ruling Taliban. The battlefield is an anticlimax. It has seen
constant exchange of fire between the two sides since the US began bombing,
but there are no rows of artillery and tanks guarding the frontline. Or
commanders with binoculars scanning the horizon while the infantry troops
lie low in the trenches.
Instead, on a mud road off the highway a "mujhadeen",
as the alliance calls its fighters, with a Kalashnikov slung casually
across his shoulders, is the lone sentry. He is just 18 and his name is
Subagathullah. He giggles boyishly and constantly flicks at the mop of
hair that falls across his large brown eyes. "I want to meet Amitabh
Bachchan," he says. "Will you get me a visa?" The next
second, bursts of machine gun fire rent the air. He is unperturbed and
prattles on about Hindi film stars as we head to the Zakeerah outpost.
Only when Subagathullah hears a low whistle
from a sentry at the post does he become alert. It's sunset and the outlines
of a village are visible through the elephant grass. The sounds of gunfire
get louder and we clamber up the roof to get a clearer view. On top of
a house located some 200 m away, three alliance soldiers crouching behind
sandbags let loose a volley of fire to a house not far from them. The
Taliban fighters return the fire and even launch a rocket propelled grenade.
The firing dies down after an hour. It's a stalemate.
It has been like that right across the 100-km
frontline on Afghanistan's Shomali plains for a fortnight. The Northern
Alliance has watched with obvious glee as the US fighters lit the sky
over Kabul almost every night. From the Zakeerah outpost, Subagathullah
says the bombs they dropped looked like fireworks. The sound was like
the distant rumble of thunder.
The alliance brass waits in anticipation as
the Americans go about systematically destroying the Taliban's military
machine. This was something it had wanted to do itself for years but with
little success. So far, the Taliban with their jet fighters, tanks and
artillery guns, were in a position far superior to that of the alliance
army in the vast plains of Afghanistan. But in a fortnight, the US ensured
that the gap was considerably closed.
It is still not clear just how much damage the
US has been able to inflict on cities such as Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad
and Mazar-e-Sharif. The alliance believes the American forces have been
able to gain a substantial degree of air superiority by destroying the
Taliban airbase and fighters in Kabul, and has also been able to do a
great deal of damage to the ground forces such as tanks and guns, apart
from destroying Taliban communication facilities.
Residents fleeing Kabul talk about just how
terrifying the nights were during the bombing. Kabal Abdul Jabbar, a 22-year-old
cloth merchant, who crossed his way by foot to the Panjshir valley, recollects
that every night there was total blackout. Loud explosions were followed
by the sight of the city outskirts in flames. During daytime it was deserted
and a few buildings were destroyed. The Taliban claims that 1,500 civilians
were killed in these attacks. But that is yet to be verified.
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