afghanistantook control of Maimana and Malik Pahlawan and his half-brother Gul
Pahlawan fled to Iran.
Malik’s reign had been brief but it did untold damage to the delicate
multi-ethnic confederacy Dostam had worked so hard to build. Malik’s
cold-blooded execution of Taliban prisoners and his subsequent expulsion
of Pushtun maldar from the Maimana and Sar-i Pul regions created deep
resentment among local Pushtun communities. Dostam did his best to
rebuild bridges with this community, publicly condemning Malik’s actions,
apologizing for the massacre and allowing the remaining Taliban prisoners
to return home. Dostam even asked the un and the icrc to conduct a war
crimes investigation into the Dasht-i Laili killings. The damage, however,
had been done and from this point forward the war between the Taliban
and the Northern Alliance was increasingly tainted by racial hatred.
In the summer of 1998 the Taliban launched a third offensive into
southern Faryab. When Qaisar fell they systematically pillaged the settle-
ment, separated the Uzbeks and Hazaras population from local Pushtuns
and executed them in the town square. In all around six hundred men,
women and children died in this massacre. Dostam rushed to Maimana to
try and stem the advance, only for Hizb-i Wahdat to take advantage of his
absence and seize control of Mazar-i Sharif. They also attacked the Pushtun
enclave of Balkh, where they went on an orgy of rape and pillage. In the
east, Jami‘at-i Islami’s ‘Ata Muhammad Nur occupied Tashqurghan. Dostam
fell back on Shibarghan and the Taliban swept through Faryab, massacring
thousands more Uzbeks and Hazaras. When Pushtun commanders in the
Balkh area declared their support for the Taliban and attacked Dostam’s
forces, he fled back once more to Uzbekistan.
On 8 August 1998 the Taliban drove into Mazar-i Sharif, where they
exacted terrible vengeance for the death of their comrades a year earlier.
Death squads went from house to house in the Shi‘a and Hazara mahalas,
castrating the men before slitting their throats and leaving the bodies
in the streets to be eaten by dogs. Those who sought sanctuary in the
shrine of Shah-i Mardan were driven out at gunpoint and either killed or
imprisoned. The Taliban then interdicted pilgrimage to Shah-i Mardan
in the mistaken belief it was a Shi‘a shrine. Arab mujahidin, affiliates of
’Osama bin Laden who took part in the campaign, demanded the shrine
be blown up but not even the Taliban were prepared to go that far. Not
only were Amir Sher ‘Ali Khan and several other members of the royal
family buried in its precinct, the Pushtun population held the shrine in
as much veneration as the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras. Instead, Mazari’s
mausoleum was blown up and levelled. A band of Taliban broke into the