General Dostum and the Mazar i Sharif Campaign: new light on the role of Northern Alliance warlords in Operation Enduring Freedom

This report sheds new light on the CIA and US Special Forces' covert campaign alongside Afghan Northern Alliance leader General Dostum's horse-mounted Uzbeks during 2001's Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2003 and 2005 the author traveled over the Hindu Kush Mountains to the plains of Northern Afghanistan and lived with the legendary Northern Alliance opposition leader General Dostum. His aim was to recreate Dostum's campaign alongside the CIA and Special Forces to seize the holy city of Mazar i Sharif from the Taliban in November 2001. Based on interviews with Dostum and his Uzbek commanders, this article recreates this proxy offensive that saw the Northern Alliance opposition break out of the mountains, seize this shrine town and bring the Taliban house of cards falling down in a matter of weeks. Up until now the indigenous Afghan Uzbeks, who played a crucial role as a ‘boots on the ground’ fighting force for Centcom, have been cast as a mere backdrop for American heroics. Now their side of the story and their links to the mysterious shrine of Mazar i Sharif are for the first time revealed.     

Afghanistan after the Soviets: From jihad to tribalism

In 1989 the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan leaving the embattled Afghan Communist government of President Mohammad Najibullah to fight against an emboldened mujahideen insurgency. Most experts expected a quick mujahideen victory once the Soviets were no longer directly involved in counterinsurgency operations in support of the Afghan government. But in the spring of 1989 the Afghan Communists beat the odds and defeated a mujahideen rebel offensive designed to capture the eastern city of Jalalabad. This proved to be a turning point, and for the next three years the Najibullah regime held out against the mujahideen ‘freedom fighters’. In fact the Afghan Communist regime actually outlasted its sponsor the Soviet Union. The reasons for this remarkable achievement can be traced, in part, to ethnic–tribal divisions among the quarreling mujahideen parties and the Afghan government's ability to exploit them. This largely untold story has obvious implications for understanding the future of post-Karzai Afghanistan, tribalism, ethnicity, and foreign sponsorship in post-US Afghanistan. This article will explore the reasons for the resilience of the Najibullah Communist government and then assess possible implications for a post-2014 Afghan government.