Northern Alliance To Take Kabul Tomorrow

[The PIT]

Northern Alliance reckon they'll take the town tomorrow despite preasure from the West and Pakistan.

[Wombat]

Man, let's hope they don't. I'm really starting to worry about the NA. They've already started exaggerating about their victories and Taliban actions.

We've already asked them not to take Kabul. Too bad they don't seem to listen. They wouldn't even have the opportunity if it weren't for our help. Pretty damn ungrateful.

[The PIT]

Lets see what happens. Pakinstan will only be upset if it spoils there oil plans which will be rather ironic considering the writing chalked on the paving stones outside our town hall.

[omegaRED]

Hmmmm ...

[mdhome]

Originally posted by omegaRED
Hmmmm ...

Omega, my views exactly.

[The PIT]

I can remember reading somewhere right at the very beginning that Pakistan had a agreement with the Taliban about the shipping off oil through Pakistan. Therefore it wasn't very keen to see the Taliban get it's ass kicked by the northern alliance who did'nt like Pakistan too much at time.

[KvHagedorn]

It's very simple.. the Taliban left. All we do is have a big air drop in there and when the NA comes into town it would be already under US control. Remember in Patton when Montgomery marches victoriously into Messina and Patton is already there?

[The PIT]

Too late the NA is already there this morning. In some part of the town people are shouting death to Pakistan. The pakistan leader is rather concerned.

[omegaRED]

Are they actually INSIDE Kabul?

[Joel]

We are free!!!!!!!!!!

http://news.excite.com/news/ap/011113/05/news-attacks-afghanistan-scene

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Freshly shaven men rubbed their faces, celebrating their new freedom from Taliban rules. An old man danced in the street, holding a small tape recorder blaring music.

The Taliban - who had banned music, ordered men to wear beards and ruled Afghanistan with a harsh brand of Islamic law - were gone from Afghanistan's capital.

"We are free!" shouted Noor Mohammed, as he danced with the tape player pressed to his ear.



The hard-line Islamic militia fled Kabul on Tuesday as opposition forces aided by U.S. planes massed outside the city. Their withdrawal after a five-year occupation touched off celebrations throughout the city of more than 1 million people

"Look, this feels so good," Ahmed Shah said as he felt his newly shaven face. "I hated the beard. It was always itchy."

Elsewhere, residents of the Afghan capital peered through the open doors of abandoned Taliban military bases and whispered to each other: "Are they gone?"

Cautious women were still not ready to abandon the all-enveloping burqa, a traditional veil made mandatory by the Taliban.

In a rickety old bus, one woman briefly flipped her burqa up over her head. Male residents who were gathering around a group of northern alliance soldiers laughed.

One young soldier gestured to the women to take their burqas off, but none did. Most of the women simply watched the soldiers, and some closed the curtains that are on all buses that carry women in Afghanistan. Others simply looked away.

"For now we will leave the burqa on. We don't know yet who are these people in the city," said Mariam Jan.

Her husband, an ethnic Tajik, Mohammed Wazir, said "it is our tradition. We are not sure that it will stop."

In another part of the city, people gathered to gawk at the bodies of two Arabs who lay near the U.N. guest house, which was abandoned by U.N. workers in September. Bundles of burned clothes and blankets were piled on top of the corpses, and a charred rocket launcher lay beside one of them.

Another crowd craned for a glimpse of five Pakistanis killed outside a small police station.

Sporadic gunfire pierced the crisp morning air as northern alliance soldiers celebrated their victory. U.S. bombing has cleared the way for rapid opposition advances, beginning with the fall of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Friday.

Opposition fighters moved quickly through Kabul neighborhoods, conducting house-to-house searches and seizing abandoned bases. Rifle fire was heard at some outposts on the edges of the city.

"I think there were some Taliban who were asleep when everyone else left," said a smiling resident, Abdul Jan. "They have woken up and they are thinking 'Oh my God, what can I do?"'

Fearing retaliation, a frightened employee of the Taliban's official Bakhtar News Agency hid his turban beneath the seat of his car. The Taliban required all men to wear turbans.

"Do you think they will hurt me?" the employee, Abdul Rehman, asked a reporter.

In some areas of Kabul, residents gathered on street corners to talk about what they had seen and point out houses of former Taliban commanders.

Opposition soldiers said they were collecting arms as they moved door-to-door. Others sped through the streets in vehicles camouflaged with mud that the Taliban had left behind.

In the northern district of Khair Khana, inhabited largely by ethnic Tajiks who fled the earlier fighting north of the city, some people shouted: "Congratulations! Oh my God, they are here!" Some men hugged each other.

"Now I have to go to the barber to shave my beard," said Zabiullah, an ethnic Tajik. "Today is a happy day."

Houses used by Taliban leaders in the once posh neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan were abandoned. The large steel doors of the home of former Health Minister Mullah Abbas Akhund were wide open.

Homes were also abandoned on Street 15 of Wazir Akbar Khan, famous in this area as "the street of guests" - a reference to the Arab, Chechen and Uzbek volunteers who were allied with the Taliban.

Many were affiliated with Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the terrorist attacks in the United States that killed about 4,500 people. The United States launched the bombing campaign against the Taliban after they refused to hand over bin Laden.

In Kabul's old city, businessmen said departing Taliban soldiers emptied the stores of goods and money. One money changer, who gave his name as Dr. Wali, said Taliban soldiers riding tanks stopped in front of the shops, demanded money and then rumbled out of the city.

Joel

[Bohrn]

I know that the US said for the NA not to take Kabul, but I think it is a good thing at least for now. The citizens are happy, and the dictatorship has been removed. People are alot more free now. If the US needs to negotiate with the NA on this, that is ok, they are allies of sorts.

A positive use of force.

[The PIT]

Only time will tell orginally the Taliban were welcomed in it was only when the suppresssion came in they realised that these guys weren't nice guys after all.
I've seen more background of Afghanstan and it's amazing how many countries have been interferring one way or the other. One of the biggest culprits being Pakistan. Naugthy Nuaghty Boys. I also wonder how many pictures have been shown showing some of the liberated shouting death to Pakistan have been shown. After putting up of weeks of death to the usa and death to Britain it would be nice to address the balance a bit. It may even make some people move away from the belief thats it a holy war against Muslims.
I read one article quoting islamic sources in Pakistan saying they are disappointed in the news. Come on boys you got some happy Muslims aren't you pleased for them?
Interestingly some of volenteers that went from Pakistan to Afghanstan to fight for the Taliban were orginally mean't to go to kashmir to fight against India. I bet India was glad about that.
Also volentering British Muslims reportedly weren't wanted by the Taliban because that they maybe spys. So much for I'm a Muslim above any country.
Oh another thing retreating Taliban were shooting hundreds of people. Nice guys.

[Joel]

And not only that but they took the Christian detainies as hostages.

Joel

[RedRed]

When Britian faught for control at the turn of the last century for Afghanistan there was a saying..... 'you cant buy an Afghan - you can rent one for a while'

The leaders of the NA have little enough control over their essentially tribal chiefs/warlords. This is why they were decimated and ousted before. They will probably not accept the 'broad based government' that was suggested by the west.

We have heard major backtracking from Powell to Blair that perhaps they (the NA) wont be so bad after all and are really quite poitically mature - dont believe it! The western politicians have dabbled in Afghanistan again and they have overplayed their support for the NA. think of the politics and the war in afghanistan as a big spinning glass wheel. this wheel needed gentle prodding to get it to stop spinning. The Americans started to do this with their 'precision' bombing, but this is for a long haul. Unfortunately, they got bored. And braught out their big toys - B52's. This was a sledgehammer to the glass wheel. It is now so shattered that the NA, although relatively weak, and in a position where they would have to fight, now dont. The balance the politicians were trying to achieve is lost. The americans cant start bombing the NA to get them to stop if they become excessive.


In this confusion remember that the target of this was one man - bin laden.

my tuppence....

RedRed

[The PIT]

Hopefully the Na will catch him and do the honours.