‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017Iranian diplomatic mission, where they shot dead eight of its members and
an Iranian journalist. A further 5,000 prisoners were locked in shipping
containers and dispatched to Shibarghan, Herat and Qandahar. Denied
food and water, many of them died en route from thirst and suffocation.
Around 2,000 people died in the Mazar-i Sharif massacre, while thou-
sands more were slaughtered during the Taliban’s rampage through Faryab
and Jauzjan. 3
The fall of the Northern Provinces made the occupation of the Hazarajat
inevitable. For more than a year the Taliban had blockaded the region from
the south and the population was on the edge of starvation. A month after
the fall of Mazar-i Sharif, Hazara resistance collapsed. Supported by Sayyid
Akbari’s militia, the Taliban took Bamiyan and Yakaulang, looted and burnt
the bazaars and slaughtered hundreds of Hazaras. By the end of September
1998 around 90 per cent of Afghanistan was under Taliban control. In
desperation Rabbani and Mas‘ud, who still held out in Badakhshan and the
Panjshir, agreed to accept military aid from Russia as well as Iran and India.
In the Hazarajat, Karim Khalili of Hizb-i Wahdat retreated to Darra-yi
Chasht in the headwaters of the Balkh Ab, while Dostam’s commanders
tried to regroup in the mountain stronghold of Darra-yi Suf. The complete
subjugation of Afghanistan now seemed but a matter of time.
Darra-yi ‘Ali, Bamiyan province. A sign over the graveyard of ‘the most oppressed
martyrs of the age’, commemorating the slaughter of 25 Hazaras, mostly
young men, by the Taliban.