. Junbish in red.
Taliban take control (19–27 May 1997) On 19 May 1997, Malik defected to the Taliban, arresting several Junbish commanders and up to 5,000 Junbish soldiers. Taliban forces quickly came to his aid from Kabul and
Herat, and one by one the northern provinces fell into the hands of the improbable Pashtun–Uzbek alliance, with Malik's forces base in
Faryab Province. Heavy fighting began over the three contested provinces of
Balkh,
Samangan and
Kunduz.) summarily executed thousands of Taliban members. "He is widely believed to have been responsible for the massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban prisoners after inviting them into Mazar-i-Sharif." Thousands of Taliban troops and hundreds of Taliban of Pakistani origin were shot dead and buried in mass graves. Furthermore, Junbish commanders such as
Ghulam Haidar Jawzjani were also captured and killed, along with
Salam Pahlawan and
Rais Omar Bey.
Anti-Taliban forces regroup (June–August 1997) The revolt against the Taliban takeover had been incredibly successful. It both inspired Massoud's forces to gain ground north of Kabul and resulted in the Hazaras in central Afghanistan managing to drive off the Taliban that had been besieging the
Hazarajat for nine months. Meanwhile, in June 1997, the local Pashtun
shura of the
province of Kunduz defected to the Taliban. At that point, Dostum returned from exile in Turkey, rallied the Uzbek troops loyal to him, and started attacking Malik's forces. When the Taliban had retreated from Mazar, the city was taken over by Hazara militias, and Dostum was unable to reclaim his capital; he therefore set up his base in
Sheberghan, the capital city of the Jowzjan Province to the west. In order to discredit Malik and win back his supporters, Dostum exposed the atrocities Malik had committed against the Taliban prisoners of war by unearthing 20 mass graves in the Dash-te-Laili desert near Sheberghan. By the end of 1997, all factions in the Afghan Civil War had engaged in ethnic and religious cleansing and massacres against each other. Although the main ethnic divide was between Pashtuns (led by the Taliban) and non-Pashtuns (formally united in the Northern Alliance), the latter also engaged in large-scale violence against each other in episodes of ethno-religion-based infighting. The recent battles created more than 750,000 new refugees from around the areas of Mazar, the Herat front and Kabul, while foreign powers increased material support for their proxies inside Afghanistan. The United Nations were unsuccessful in trying to mediate peace negotiations. Humanitarian aid organisations were increasingly forced to abandon Afghanistan as warring parties attacked them for no reason, or in the case of the Taliban because the aid workers applied or demanded equal treatment and care for women. The Taliban saw gender equality as un-Islamic, and responded with rising hostility to aid agencies. This had the effect of significantly reducing Western financial aid for humanitarian relief.
Hazara infighting and Uzbek-Hazara conflicts (January–February 1998) The Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif, officially all unified under the flag of Hezbe Wahdat, were divided into several factions that occasionally clashed with each other and Uzbek groups after repulsing the Taliban. The city turned into a warzone, while Iranian and Russian intelligence officials made futile attempts to mediate between Dostum and the Hazaras as well as between the various Hazara factions. In February 1998, heavy fighting between Hazaras and Uzbeks erupted in Mazar, and Massoud visited Tehran in a desperate call for help in saving the anti-Taliban alliance. Meanwhile, the Taliban were preparing a new offensive and massacred 600 Uzbek villagers in Faryab Province in January. They imposed an even stricter interpretation of Islamic law, leading to regular amputations, lashings and stonings, especially against women, and the shutdown of the last remaining girls schools. Although international outcry mounted, no action was taken and on 24 February 1998 all UN staff pulled out of Kandahar, the Taliban capital.
New Taliban offensive (July 1998) In July 1998 the Taliban took control of much of the area north of Herat, conquering
Maimana on 12 July. They defeated Junbish, and captured 100 tanks and vehicles as well as some 800 Uzbek soldiers, most of whom were slaughtered. This cut off one of the main supply lines. Hezb-e Islam reportedly switched sides and joined the Taliban, having encircled the front lines of Hezbe Wahdat at Qalai-Zaini-Takhta Pul. The
055 Brigade of Al Qaeda was reported to have been used in the battle.
Recapture and massacre (August 1998) On 1 August 1998, the Taliban captured the headquarters of warlord Dostum's Junbish forces at Sheberghan. This happened after several of his commanders accepted bribes by the Taliban, and defected. Dostum again fled to Turkey via Uzbekistan. This caused other Uzbek commanders guarding the road to Mazar to be demoralised, and accept bribes. Only a Hazara army of 1,500 troops just outside Mazar was still guarding the city. They were caught by a surprise attack in the early morning of 8 August, and fought until they were out of ammunition, and except for about 100, all were killed by the Taliban. At 10 am on 8 August 1998, the Taliban entered Mazar and for the next two days drove their pickup trucks "up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved—shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys." More than 8,000 noncombatants were reported killed in Mazar-i-Sharif and later in
Bamiyan. In addition, the Taliban were criticized for forbidding anyone from burying the corpses for the first six days (contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial) while the remains rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs. The Taliban also reportedly sought out and massacred members of the
Hazara, while in control of Mazar. In Qalai-Zaini-Takhta Pul about 1,500–3,000 Wahdat fighters were trapped. Many were executed on the spot, while approximately 700 attempted to flee in pickup trucks, many being killed on the way. Commanders of Wahdat such as
Muhammad Muhaqiq evacuated by helicopter. One group, Sipah-i Sahaba, associated with Pakistan and the Taliban, also
captured the Iranian consulate and shot dead one journalist and eight intelligence and diplomatic officers. The slaughter has been credited to a number of factors—ethnic difference, suspicion of Hazara loyalty to Shia Iran, anger at the loss of life suffered in an earlier unsuccessful Taliban takeover of Mazarwas—including
takfir by the Taliban of the
Shia Hazaras. the commander of the attack and the new governor of Mazar, declared from several mosques in the city in separate speeches: Last year you rebelled against us and killed us. From all your homes you shot at us. Now we are here to deal with you. (...)Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shia. They are
kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. (...)If you do not show your loyalty, we will burn your houses, and we will kill you. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. (...)[W]herever you [Hazaras] go we will catch you. If you go up, we will pull you down by your feet; if you hide below, we will pull you up by your hair. (...)If anyone is hiding Hazaras in his house he too will be taken away. What [Hizb-i] Wahdat and the Hazaras did to the Talibs, we did worse...as many as they killed, we killed more. It was this capture of Mazar-i-Sharif, the last major city in Afghanistan to fall to the Taliban, that prompted Pakistan's recognition of the Taliban regime. Soon afterward, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia extended official recognition to the regime, while Turkmenistan resumed relations—although the Taliban were not officially recognized by
Turkmenbashi as the rulers of Afghanistan. ==External links==