Military

DATE=11/13/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=AFGHAN EVENTS

NUMBER=2-283100

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan took control of the capital after a series of lightening victories across northern and western parts of the country. The Taleban fled Kabul without a fight and headed south where they still hold power. V-O-A's Laurie Kassman sums up the events that led up to the dramatic turn of events.

TEXT: The Taleban entered Kabul in September of 1996 and consolidated their control over about 90 percent of the country. Five years later, they are on the run.

The Taleban began as a small group of religious students fed up with the civil war raging among rival tribes competing to run Afghanistan after Soviet troops pulled out in 1988.

Taleban militants seized the southern city of Kandahar in 1994 and pushed northward to Kabul, which they took two years later. They announced their aim to free the country of a corrupt leadership and create a strict Islamic society.

Under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the mostly Pashtun Taleban imposed an austere form of Islam. They banned music, games and other entertainment as a distraction from prayer. They ordered men to grow their beards and women to stay at home. Human rights groups described their rule as a reign of terror.

The ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazarahs who fought them were forced to retreat to a small area of the north. Their efforts to unseat the Taleban failed. Their call for outside help went unanswered.

After the September 11th terrorist attack in New York, the United States launched its campaign against al-Qaida terrorist bases in Afghanistan and the Taleban leadership harboring al-Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden.

From their northern bases, the anti-Taleban forces insisted they could oust the Taleban with the help of U-S air power. Early in October the coalition of ethnic Tajiks, Hazarahs and Uzbeks got its wish.

Five weeks of non-stop U-S air strikes against Taleban military sites and assistance from small units of U-S and British commandos on the ground paved the way for anti-Taleban fighters to advance with Soviet-era tanks, mortars and even cavalry charges to take the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The Northern Alliance's high-speed sweep across northern Afghanistan has taken the international community by surprise. By early November, the anti-Taleban forces had claimed control of most of northern and western Afghanistan -- something they had not been able to achieve in more than five years of battle.

Resistance crumbled as Taleban fighters scattered and their leaders talked of tactical retreat. Taleban fighters heave headed south toward their traditional strongholds in and around Kandahar. (Signed)

NEB/LMK/KBK