Taliban Fighters Take Afghan Warlord’s Stronghold

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — Jubilant Taliban religious fighters riding tanks, firing guns into the air and chanting “God is great” captured this stronghold of a northern warlord on Saturday, the last obstacle in their three-year campaign to create a strict Islamic state.

With the Taliban in control of the ancient city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan was virtually united under one regime for the first time since the Soviet army left the country in 1989.

Taliban soldiers ripped down giant posters of warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum from traffic posts, pillars and public buildings as the remnants of his army fled toward the Uzbekistan and Tajikistan borders, about 35 miles to the north.

Some Taliban soldiers fired submachine guns into the air and at pictures of Dostum, whose crumbling empire had been the last significant resistance to the encroaching band of former seminary students.

Troops in jeeps, tanks and personnel carriers rumbled through the mostly unpaved streets just before dusk. Male residents looked on glumly; women melted into the shadows and their homes.

On the lead tank was Gen. Malik Pahlawan--Dostum’s second in command--whose defection to the Taliban on Monday marked the beginning of Dostum’s downfall.

Scattered shooting was heard as the victors sought out snipers from small lanes between the dusty mud or brick buildings.

The Taliban victory was a boost to Pakistan, which had supported the group amid the chaos of feuding Afghan militias that followed the ouster of the Soviet-backed regime in 1992.

But Saturday’s advance could bode ill for Central Asian republics to the north, which had backed Dostum in the hopes that he would shield their Muslim populations from the Taliban’s influence.

In a statement issued through the Itar-Tass news agency, Russia pledged to intervene if fighting spread to former Soviet republics that belong to a federation known as the Commonwealth of Independent States.

“The Russian leadership states that if the CIS border is violated, the mechanism of the CIS collective security treaty will be immediately activated,” the statement said.

The Taliban foreign minister quickly sought to quell fears of further conquest, according to an official report from Pakistan.

“I assure the world and neighboring countries that the Taliban government is strictly adhering to a policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries,” Mullah Mohammed Ghous said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Earlier Saturday, Pahlawan seized Dostum’s hometown and western military headquarters at Sheberghan. The commander of Dostum’s air force, Gen. Jamil, and three other pilots flew their fighter planes to Kabul, the capital, and defected; they were joined later by more pilots.

The only provinces still outside Taliban control were Takhar, parts of Kondoz and Baghlan, and the northern province of Badakhshan, which was held by Ahmed Shah Masoud, the defense chief of the government ousted from Kabul last year.

The Taliban began their march across Afghanistan three years ago from their base in the south, capturing territory from local warlords and guerrilla forces, usually without a fight. They reached Kabul in September.

In the areas they control, they have imposed strict Islamic codes barring women from working, banning alcohol and most light entertainment and forcing men to pray in the mosques.

Until Saturday, Mazar-i-Sharif was the only major city in the country where a woman could walk on the street without wearing a veil from head to toe.

As the Taliban forces approached, panic spread through the city. Hundreds of people clogged the streets trying to flee. Soldiers seized cars at gunpoint to escape, while officers turned their tanks and headed for the city’s exits.