Former Allies Rout Taliban Forces Loyal To Abdul Malik Control Key Afghanistan City

The same factional forces that helped the Taliban militia capture this key northern provincial capital drove the radical Muslim force out of the city Wednesday after a night of fierce street battles, shattering an alliance that lasted only a week and casting doubt on the Taliban’s ability to control the last part of Afghanistan not under its rule.

More than 300 Taliban guerrillas were killed in a 16-hour battle that began Tuesday afternoon when forces loyal to northern leader Abdul Malik staged sneak attacks on the Taliban and continued pounding them with tanks and rocket-propelled grenades for several hours after sunrise Wednesday morning. The lightly armed Taliban force of about 3,000, was outnumbered and outgunned.

The Taliban has seized more than three-fourths of Afghanistan in less than three years, imposing a harsh brand of Islamic rule in areas under its control. Its capture of the capital, Kabul, in September, sent Afghanistan’s government retreating northward.

One of the key anti-Taliban alliance leaders, Abdurrashid Dostum, had maintained a fiefdom here for the past five years, and his forces were considered to be among the toughest and best equipped of the factions opposing the Taliban. But Dostum’s resistance crumbled last week when Malik, one of his key lieutenants, turned against him, seized Mazar and welcomed the Taliban forces into the city.

Tensions between Malik’s northerners and the southern-based Taliban erupted into fighting Tuesday night, and the Taliban’s unexpected defeat, as well as Malik’s quick, violent turn against a new ally, again demonstrated the volatility of Afghanistan’s ethnic-based factions.

The fearsome night of fighting, with undefined battle lines and combatants whose identity was not certain until Wednesday morning, was the biggest battle in a city that had been a refuge during two decades of civil war.