The Afghan Way of War

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What the Alliance does possess is an intimate knowledge of the terrain, a visceral hatred of the opponent and a war-honed knack for exploiting Taliban vulnerability. "These folks are aggressive," U.S. Marine General Peter Pace said Wednesday. "They're taking the war to their enemy--and ours." For the Alliance, the war's critical turn came early this month when U.S. B-52s began hammering Taliban front lines dug in near Mazar and Kabul and further north, along the Tajik border. Despite U.S. frustration with the Alliance's sluggishness, the complexity of waging war in an alien, booby-trapped environment gave Pentagon strategists little choice but to embrace the rebels as a proxy ground force. For the first time, the Pentagon last week acknowledged that the U.S. has air-dropped guns and horse feed to Alliance forces. Meanwhile, U.S. Green Berets slipped into rebel-held territory and worked to prepare the Alliance's factions for a coordinated assault on Mazar. "Obviously, we needed help," said General Muhibullah, a senior commander in Dasht-i-Qaleh. "It was very effective for us when the U.S. advisers came to Mazar."

The order to attack came last Monday. Dostum's men scrambled out of their trenches and dashed toward the Taliban line in Kishindi, ducking behind rocks, bushes and trees. A handful of Taliban armored vehicles and tanks opened fire, forcing Dostum to order his forces to fall back. Sitting astride his dark bay pony, he radioed for the cavalry. By the next night, after "very fierce" fighting, the Alliance broke through. A local uprising against the Taliban sent the regime's men running from the district capital, Shulgarah. The treacherous Shulgarah Pass--a narrow ravine 14 miles southwest of Mazar where the Alliance had expected to be ambushed by enemy gunners--had been abandoned by Taliban troops before the Alliance arrived.

On the outskirts of Mazar, hundreds of the Taliban's 5,000 troops in the region took shelter around a power plant and a fertilizer factory; they believed the U.S. wouldn't hit the factory because doing so could send deadly ammonia fumes into the air. After a meeting with Atta Thursday night, Dostum initiated skirmishes with the Taliban. On Friday morning, the two met with Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, who commands anti-Taliban Hazara fighters, to plan a three-pronged attack on Taliban positions ringing the city. A group of rebels surprised the Taliban by veering off the main road into Mazar and advancing from the southwest, through a rugged mountain pass known as the "gorge of healing springs." An all-night U.S. air raid along the pass knocked out Taliban defenses and allowed the Alliance to seize the vitally important ridge.