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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Taliban Rule Rocked Afghan Minorities Express Fury Against Their Harsh New Overlords

Associated Press

The people found the young man’s mutilated body in an empty lot and carried it on a plank to a Kabul police station, demanding safer streets. They shouted, “Die Taliban, die!”

Even after armed Taliban police pulled up in trucks and fired automatic weapons into the air, witnesses said the demonstration continued. The crowd, minority Shiite Muslims, dispersed only when a policeman fired straight into it and injured two people.

Signs of anger from Afghan religious and ethnic minorities - unheard of since Taliban forces took over the capital last fall and imposed their harsh version of Islamic law - are cropping up nationwide, shaking the Taliban army’s faith in its ability to rule unopposed.

In recent weeks, the Taliban saw its first military defeat in three years when its soldiers were lured into the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and attacked from all sides by Shiite Muslims and ethnic Uzbeks. Hundreds of Taliban were slaughtered, thousands were taken prisoner, and thousands more fled in terror.

In the western town of Herat, Taliban opponents clandestinely deliver inspirational “night letters” to most homes, urging resistance and promising help.

And in Kabul, foreign observers say the Taliban has not disarmed many capital neighborhoods, so a small incident could spark a violent reaction.

The Taliban’s first big victory in the north since the Mazar-e-Sharif debacle, acknowledged Wednesday by the opposition, shows how ethnic divisions increasingly influence Afghanistan’s fighting.

Two opposition commanders defected and invited the Taliban into Kunduz, 150 miles north of Kabul, which the Islamic army then conquered. The defectors were ethnic Pashtuns, like most Taliban, while the key opposition leader they betrayed is an ethic Tajik.

Shortly after seizing control of Kabul in September, the Taliban army swept through the city, arresting Tajiks out of fear they would be loyal to the overthrown military chief, Ahmed Shah Massood.

Ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks dominate northern Afghanistan, and the ferocious battle in Mazar-e-Sharif has made the Taliban even more wary of the country’s minorities.

Most Taliban, like most Afghans, are Sunni Muslims. The Shiite Muslims and Uzbeks who attacked Mazar-e-Sharif left hundreds of mutilated Taliban corpses for two days in the blistering desert sun.

After the battle, the Taliban began arresting Shiite Muslims in Kabul, 180 miles to the south, claiming to have received information about an insurgency being planned in the capital and plots to spread unrest to Herat. Taliban officials also accused opposition parties of sparking the Mazar-e-Sharif rebellion.

Kabul’s security director Haji Jumaddi told The Associated Press that the Taliban would deal harshly with anyone found to be involved in such plots.

“We hope to capture and kill all the traitors to our movement,” Jumaddi said.

The Taliban’s brand of Islamic law is harsh. They have banned women from work and school, forced men to wear beards and pray daily. Thieves have had their limbs amputated; other criminals have been publicly hanged.

During Friday’s Shiite Muslim demonstration outside the police station in Kabul, the Taliban arrested, then released, more than 300 demonstrators. The next day, they cracked down and arrested more than 120 Shiite Muslims as well as dozens of ethnic Tajiks.

The country’s minority ethnic groups, while conservative, are not as rigid in their Islamic beliefs as the Taliban. For some, such as ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, it is difficult to grow a full beard, something the Taliban demand of their followers.

But so far, the Taliban rulers have not seemed inclined to compromise, and Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammed Stanekzai makes no apologies for the recent arrests: “Some of those elements are trying to create panic among the local citizens.”