Sunday flashback: "As the Taliban Finish Off Foes, Iran Is Looming" (Oct. 1998)

[Robb]

As they are still available online, on Sundays I'm posting pre-9/11 stories about the Taliban and Afghanistan. I'm picking stories particularly that involve current players where possible, in an effort to illuminate the shifting loyalties and priorities of Central Asian politics. This one struck me given Ahmadinejad's visit with Karzai this week. -- R

As the Taliban Finish Off Foes, Iran Is Looming (NYT, Oct. 3 1998)

MIRBACAKOT, Afghanistan, Oct. 2— With gunfire snapping in the wind and artillery blasts punctuating his sentences, the commander of the Taliban's front-line forces was in a boastful, triumphant mood today.

He removed his artificial leg, sat comfortably on a blanket in his small brick fortress and pointed a few hundred yards to the north where, lodged in the foothills, was the last bastion of what was once grandly called the Northern Alliance.

''We are giving the enemy 10 days, so that anybody who wants to get out can get out,'' said the commander, Haji Mullah Abdus Sattar. ''Then, by the will of God, we will crush the life from anyone who remains behind.''

These are heady days for the Taliban. Mazar-i-Sharif fell to them in August, Bamiyan in September. They now control 90 percent of Afghanistan, with only the army of their wiliest opponent, Ahmad Shah Massoud, left to conquer....

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