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Northern Alliance Captures Kabul
KABUL, Nov 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Despite requests by the U.S. and Britain to hold off entering the capital until a broad based government can be established, the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance entered Kabul on Tuesday sparking celebrations at the end of five years of Taliban rule, news agencies reported.
Black turbans, the Taliban's trademark, hung from the gate of the police headquarters after opposition security troops took control of the city shortly after dawn.
Afghan residents reportedly shouted anti-Taliban and anti-Pakistan slogans and cheered as Northern Alliance troops rolled through the city.
The Northern Alliance triumph was largely without blood. But a group of hard-core Arab fighters, possibly loyal to Osama bin Laden, staged a last stand in the Shari Naw area.
Additionally, news agencies reported that six bullet-riddled bodies were later dumped in a nearby park - the bodies may have been those of members of the Taliban or of pro-Taliban Pakistani forces.
"Death to Pakistan, Death to terrorists" shouted a crowd of several hundred who gathered in the park.
An official of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who led attempts to recover the remains, said up to 20 bodies might be in the park.
Looting also posed a problem as millions of dollars were stolen from moneychangers in the Shara-e-Shazada market. The thefts wiped out the life savings of many local residents and dealt a major blow to the local economy.
"This was all our capital. Even the computers, carpets and teapots have gone. This is a crime against Afghanistan, the Afghans and against Islam," said Haji Amin Jan Khosti, chief of the Shara-e-Shazada money exchange.
Residents said they also saw armed men robbing the central bank and driving away in cars stuffed with money. However, it is unclear which faction was responsible for the thefts. Civilians were seen stealing fans and air conditioners from the Pakistan embassy.
A group of 360 prisoners from inside the Taliban police headquarters were freed and a jail for religious offenders was also emptied, witnesses said.
For many Kabul residents, happiness was not so much an expression of support for the Northern Alliance as an outpouring of relief that the Taliban had gone.
There was also fear that the latest upheaval in Kabul's tumultuous history would see a return to the lawlessness and anarchy that characterized the 1992-1996
mujahideen government.
That regime, which followed the collapse of a Moscow-backed government, included several of the Northern Alliance ethnic factions.
"If the opposition forces are able to keep security, and ethnic differences do not emerge among them, then I will be very happy to see them back in Kabul because the Taliban were a tyrannical regime," said 58-year-old resident Abdul Gafoor.
"But if the opposition forces repeat the atrocities of six years earlier that will be a tragedy for Afghanistan and especially for Kabul."
The Northern Alliance is notorious for torturing Afghan civilians and for widespread rapes and sexual assaults on women.
The opposition dispatched police units and other security forces to all corners of the city after reports of shooting by the renegade fighters holed up in abandoned Taliban strongholds.
Armed soldiers chased looters carrying carpets and other goods stolen from markets.
In Kabul, for the moment, there is a "party atmosphere" on the streets. Dozens of men theatrically threw away their turbans to symbolize their freedom from the former regime.
Another symbolic moment prompted shrieks of joy when Radio Afghanistan began broadcasting music for the first time in five years, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Listeners carrying transistor radios in the street whooped with delight as the Taliban ban on music ended and a woman's voice - another unheard of event - broadcast news of the latest events.
"This is a joyous day for us not only because we are going back to our homes in Kabul but also because we will now have the opportunity to restore order after years of Taliban misrule," police captain Mohammed Zulmai said.
Meanwhile, ousted Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani announced that he intends to return soon to Kabul, an Afghan envoy said Tuesday.
Rabbani, the political leader of the Northern Alliance, plans to return to Kabul in the next two or three days, said the ambassador for the Afghan government-in-exile in Dushanbe, Said Ibragim Khikmat.
Rabbani, who was deposed by the Taliban in 1996, is still recognized as Afghanistan's president by the United Nations and most countries.
Khikmat also said that a military and political committee has been created, headed by Rabbani's military commander General Fahim, to ensure security in Kabul.
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