Despite the continued pummeling by the United States that has uprooted many civilians from their homes, the Taliban still talk defiantly. "The fighting will continue until Judgment Day," Najibullah Sheerzio, the Taliban foreign ministry representative here, saidin an interview in his office. "It is a war not only in Afghanistan but everywhere between Muslims and America."
Although they have fled several cities, including the capital, Kabul, the Taliban have begun to show some resilience. In Kandahar, the spiritual center of the Taliban, its leaders appear to be in control despite intense bombing, and if they are about to give up power, they seem determined to do so on their own terms.
Video: When
Kabul was Taken (aid workers report)
Multimedia: Washington
Post Special Reports
Away from the fighting, refugee camps lined the road, with signboards identifying their source of financing. "Mercy Malaysia," read one sign; "Muslim World League," read another. Yet another declared that the camp was "for the victim refugees of the American war."
US Determined to Set Assistance Right
US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in meetings co-chaired with Japan is working to establish an international conference in Pakistan from November 27 to 29 hosted by the World Bank. The conference is intended to help rebuild a country devastated by decades of war, years of famine and weeks of a US-led bombing campaign. The US meeting had originally been planned for the United Nations. The US view perhaps prompted the Northern Alliance to offer three days for the Taliban surrender in Kunduz... surrender or face an all-out assault. A Taliban surrender in the city is being blocked by fighters from outside Afghanistan — combatants loyal to Osama bin Laden who fear they will be killed by the opposition forces. Department of Defense, Rumsfeld told the opposition forces that he wants them dead or alive.
Military action is far from over. Vice President Dick Cheney reminds, " The al Qaida network is a global network. They've got cells all over the world. There is no reason to believe this operation is about to end." The terrorist at large can hide in caves that are difficult to find and to search. The US appears to be recruiting opposition forces for a hunt for bin Laden and other terrorists... like bounty hunters.
Nearly 5,000 unexploded and highly volatile cluster bombs may be littered across areas of Afghanistan that were targeted by U.S. warplanes. Land mines and other unexploded devices litter the countryside... everywhere in Afghanistan. Travelers there are always in danger from these explosives.
Food, clothing and shelter all are in low supply. Thousands are suffering from lack of these and medical care. Winter is beginning in Afghanistan.
Ground Deployments
The US said
they will not accept any negotiated surrender that allows leaders of the Taliban
or bin Laden’s al-Qaida network to escape and to remain free.
Sources say that Special Forces are continuing to coordinate air strikes and to bolster rebel leaders in the north, south, and in the far western parts of the country. Strategic bombing and assaults are blocking major routes of withdrawal for Taliban forces. Pakistan is said to be tightly controlling borders there. Conflicting border reports indicate that the border patrols will back-off if the there are large groups and weapons involved. Taliban troops are continuing to surrender under intense pressure from the Afghan rebel forces and US bombing.
With more than three-quarters of Afghanistan now under opposition control, thousands of bin Laden's Arab troops and Taliban fighters are surrendering, while others are under siege. Rumsfeld said that high-level Taliban leaders had been captured by opposition Afghan forces and that U.S. officials were planning to interrogate them. He says that Taliban that won't surrender are being killed by American and other anti-Taliban forces in combat. There are ritght now many reports that simply cannot be confirmed.
Pashtun anti-Taliban
Groups in the south are
suspicious of the predominantly ethnic Tajik and Uzbek Northern Alliance, which
took control of Kabul last week. 
Underlining
the ethnic rivalries that make building a coherent government so difficult. Many
tribal leaders support the return of the exiled former King, Zahir Shah. They
warn that the Northern Alliance must not be allowed to take control in
Afghanistan.
In Kabul, the Northern Alliance now occupy every street corner. Many fear a new reign of ethnic cleansing may begin. The former King, Burhanuddin Rabbani returned to the capital Saturday. Rabbani's foreign minister, Abdullah, said the northern alliance remained committed to forming a multiethnic government, including the dominant Pashtun group "the sooner the better." Rabbani's followers intend to enter such negotiations from a position of strength as the legitimate rulers of this country.
Understanding the Afghans
This is certainly difficult for Americans. Many Afghans apparently have a mind
for war and fighting. A book
by an Afghan fighter is helpful. Reading it, you can get a look at how a
warrior mind develops, from the perspective of a warrior writing in his journal.
Last spring, Ahmed Rashid published "The Taliban" as a way to continue his investigative story about the problems of Afghanistan and that region. One needs to understand, he says. "These are boys, many of them orphans, who grew up without women. They grew up in boarding schools, madrassas. They never saw women. They never had any contact with women. Many of them did not even have female family members. So there's a background of living in a totally all-male society and wanting to recreate that in Afghanistan." He says of Afghanistan, "There have been human losses of an almost holocaust proportion. You have a country that is utterly, utterly devastated. You have an economy that is now totally criminal." As he sees it, "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul" on September 26, 1996.
In the months before the Taliban took power, former US assistant secretary of state for South Asia Robin Raphel waged an intense round of shuttle diplomacy between the powers with possible stakes in oil projects. Another factor in the early US support for the Taliban movement was the belief that they would be able to eradicate the many so-called "terrorist" camps. Over this issue the Taliban fell out with Washington. Later, most diplomatic connections were severed as protests against the Taliban's treatment of women erupted in the United States.
Throughout Northern Afghanistan there are reports of revenge killings by Afghan opposition forces sweeping into areas once held by the Taliban. The United Nations is investigating a mass execution in the conquered city of Mazar-e-Sharif by the Northern Alliance. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported execution deaths in Mazar-e-Sharif. Many are Arabs. There are reports that ethnic Pashtun are not included in the executions and that most are not receiving abuses that had been predicted and feared as the Northern Alliances forces took control of Taliban strongholds. The Red Cross said its workers in Mazar-e-Sharif were burying hundreds of bodies in the city but could not say if the corpses belonged to combatants or civilians. A new York Times article is available in the archive covering action in the North at Kunduz.
