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Journalism of Courage
KABUL, March 15: International aid workers were planning today to evacuate the beleaguered northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif after rival factions waged street battles in several neighbourhoods.
The International Red Cross in Kabul said its staff in Mazar-e-Sharif, some 300 km away, were reporting sporadic gun battles throughout the city.
It appeared the main combatants were Shiite Muslims belonging to the Hezb-e-Wahadat group and forces loyal to Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum.
Both groups belong to an opposition alliance trying to stop the Taliban religious army’s consolidation of power in Afghanistan.
Independent sources in contact with the city said the situation was “highly tense”. A Pakistan-based private news service, the Afghan Islamic Press, yesterday said that the clashes left dozens of people dead. “Heavy fighting has taken place right inside the centre of town and the situation can only be described as confusing and chaotic,” the sources said.
Western sources contacted insidethe city added that during a morning lull in the fighting, a number of civilians attempted to leave to escape the clashes.
The Taliban control roughly 85 percent of the country, while the opposition rules in the remaining 15 percent, most of it in northern Afghanistan. But the opposition alliance is a quarrelsome collection of small parties, which mostly represent the country’s minority ethnic and religious groups.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, the centre of the opposition-held territory, shops were shuttered today and dozens of people had begun to leave the city, said Juan Martinez, a Red Cross spokesman in Kabul.
He said the Red Cross was ready to evacuate international workers of Doctors Without Borders and Pharmacies Without Borders. The Red Cross, he said, would evacuate only non-essential international workers.
“It’s very tense in Mazar-e-Sharif today,” he told the Associated Press in Kabul.The strongest group in Mazar-e-Sharif has been the Shiite Muslims of Hezb-e-Wahadat, which also controls thecentral Bamyan province.
The Hezb-e-Wahadat led a bloody uprising last May against the Taliban army, when it briefly took control of Mazar-e-Sharif. Several hundred Taliban died in street battles and it is believed that as many as 2,000 Taliban soldiers who were taken prisoner were later massacred. Since then the Hezb-e-Wahadat has been in virtual control. While both Dostum and Hezb-e-Wahadat are members of the opposition alliance they routinely clash.
The United Nations pulled its staff out of Mazar-e-Sharif last September when fighting between the Taliban and the opposition alliance raged in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban reached the outskirts of the city but were pushed back by opposition forces, most of them belonging to Hezb-e-Wahadat group.
