Taliban regime are defecting to the ranks of the Northern Alliance
''Since the beginning of the US strikes [two weeks ago], many
Taliban have been killed and all of their air defenses have
been destroyed,'' Berget said, as cannon, machine-gun, and
sniper fire echoed through the Pyandzh River valley that cuts
through Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan. ''They have no
ammunition and their morale is very weak.''
boston.com.
Troops trade allegiance as the battle
lines shift
By David Filipov, Globe Staff, 10/22/2001
EAR THE PYANDZH RIVER, Afghanistan - Berget
joined the Taliban because he once thought the Islamic
militia, with its strict interpretation of Muslim faith, was the
force that could unite Afghanistan and end its cycle of civil
conflict.
Berget, however, quickly soured on the Taliban ways. Things
were bad enough when the militia forced him to take part in
pillaging the capital, Kabul, and torturing its citizens. But when
they sent him to the front lines in Northern Afghanistan and told
him to fight alongside foreign mercenaries against the
opposition forces of the Northern Alliance, he decided to
change sides.
This weekend, Berget, an amiable 26-year-old member of the
Pashtun ethnic group that constitutes the majority in Southern
Afghanistan, grabbed his Kalashnikov rifle and walked the 200
yards of dusty no-man's land that separates the sides.
Yesterday, his third day as a member of the opposition after
seven years as a fighter for the Taliban, Berget sat
cross-legged in a semicircle of Northern Alliance fighters in a
field 300 yards from the front line. He told his new comrades
what they wanted to hear.
''Since the beginning of the US strikes [two weeks ago], many
Taliban have been killed and all of their air defenses have
been destroyed,'' Berget said, as cannon, machine-gun, and
sniper fire echoed through the Pyandzh River valley that cuts
through Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan. ''They have no
ammunition and their morale is very weak.''
Fighters of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime are defecting to
the ranks of the Northern Alliance by the hundreds, alliance
commanders say. The defections are a source of some
encouragement for the opposition, which likes to portray the
Taliban as an army in disarray that is about to collapse under
the pressure of more than two weeks of US air attacks.
A spokesman for General Ussad Attah, a prominent Afghan
opposition commander, said yesterday that about 500 Taliban
fighters had surrendered near the northern town of
Mazar-e-Sharif, Reuters reported. The Northern Afghanistan
city has been the center of fierce fighting between the Northern
Alliance and the Taliban since the US airstrikes began.
There was no way to corroborate the number of defectors, or
whether they would fight for the opposition. But that happens
often in Afghanistan, where acquaintances and family ties are
more important than political affiliation.
The Taliban's estimated 40,000 fighters, including a vanguard
of up to 8,000 foreign mercenaries, have yet to make their
presence felt, either in their conflict with the Northern Alliance
or in their defense against the US assault. Taliban officials say
the militia is saving ammunition and preparing to rout the
Americans when they finally commit ground troops; but the
opposition insists the airstrikes have sapped morale.
Berget said he had learned of the Taliban movement when he
was living in Pakistan in the early 1990s. He joined in 1995,
and at first he approved of the militia's steps to clean up
Afghan society.
When the Taliban entered Kabul in 1996, Berget said, he was
encouraged by the way the militia confiscated weapons from
the capital's residents. It was a time when rival warlords were
battling for control of the country, which was recovering from
the decade-long Soviet occupation, and the Taliban's actions
seemed like a sure way to keep the peace in a land that had
seen too much fighting.
''But then they started walking into people's houses, beating
them, whipping women who walk down the street without their
burqas,'' he said, referring to long cloaks with veils that cover
women's faces - traditional dress in rural Afghanistan, which
the Taliban has made law for all the country's women.
''And the Taliban brought a lot of Pakistanis with them,'' Berget
said. ''I thought that if Afghanistan ever became liberated by the
opposition, how would I look my brothers in the eye if I was
fighting on the same side as foreigners?''
Berget said he wanted to leave for Pakistan, but the Taliban
would not let him. ''So instead, I came here,'' he said as the
other fighters smiled approvingly. A machine gun fired a burst
across the field, but none of these hardened fighters seemed to
care.
Defections across front lines in Afghanistan are a common
occurrence. Many Tajiks have had to join the
Pashtun-dominated Taliban movement reluctantly when it
overran their villages in Northern Afghanistan in recent years.
Hussein Mohammad, an ethnic Tajik Northern Alliance fighter
who commands a post here, said his two brothers are in the
Taliban-controlled province of Kunduz.
Berget was swiftly accepted into the ranks of the Northern
Alliance because a local opposition commander, Hanon,
happened to be an old friend of Berget's father. ''During the
holy war against the Soviets he was a small boy and I was
already a commander,'' Hanon said. ''I fought alongside his
father and brothers, and he used to bring us lunch to the front
lines.''
''If I hadn't known him, I would have never taken him in,''
Hanon said, with a comradely grin and a pat on Berget's arm. ''I
would have killed him right away.''
''If I hadn't known him,'' Berget replied with a smile, ''I would
have never surrendered.'' |
