Tides of War Turn a Farmer Into a Commander Overnight

Shir Ahmad stands in a muddy courtyard, fiddling with the dials on his American-made two-way radio. Three days ago, he was a farmer. Now, he’s a military commander.

“The Taliban left here the night before last. Yesterday I became a soldier. Now I command 50 men,” he says.

Power changed hands in this ancient town in traditional Afghan fashion over the last three days. Soldiers gathered. Talks were held. Threats were exchanged. Allegiances shifted. Weapons and perhaps money moved around.

Then it was over. A new set of men was in charge. And outsiders were mystified.

“Until yesterday, this area was under the control of the Taliban,” said Samaruddin, who sells groceries near the center of town, trying to explain to visitors. “The people who had weapons were Taliban, so the people were Taliban. Now there are no Taliban here, so we are not Taliban anymore.”

For days, Northern Alliance leaders had been warning that trouble was brewing in Balkh, the capital of the Bactria empire and, according to legend, birthplace of the ancient philosopher Zoroaster.

After the fall of the Taliban’s northern stronghold of Kunduz nine days ago, as many as 2,000 Taliban fighters were believed to have taken refuge within city walls that locals say are as old as the philosopher.

These days, Balkh, 12 miles west of Mazar-i-Sharif, is a mostly ethnic Pushtun town in a region otherwise dominated by ethnic Uzbeks. The Taliban has drawn much of its support from Pushtuns, so it was natural for the regime’s fighters to retreat to the protection of Balkh’s Pushtun commanders.

Northern Alliance commanders led by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum pressed the commanders to surrender, backing their demands with threats of military action. The alliance massed more than 1,000 troops outside town Monday and prepared to move in but then suddenly backed off.

Instead, locals say, a smaller Northern Alliance force entered, apparently after an agreement with the Pushtun leaders. The force went to the homes of various commanders and confiscated 500 weapons, Gen. Abdul Satar Arghon said. He said that means 500 Taliban soldiers had surrendered.

There was little sign of non-Afghan Taliban members. Most of those who surrendered were locals, and they had been living in their homes with their families. Some were from other parts of Afghanistan.

One of them was Asad Doolah, who said he was press-ganged by the Taliban from his home in the central province of Oruzgan and sent to defend Kunduz. When the Taliban abandoned Kunduz, he fled with the forces of Mullah Shamok, a warlord from the Balkh region. For a week he camped out at Shamok’s house, until they received word that they were pulling out to surrender.

As their convoy moved, he recalled, a few cars separated and drove to the former bank building that was the local commandant’s headquarters.

Shamok joined Dostum’s faction, local officials say, and has moved back to his home village a free man. Doolah was arrested by the Northern Alliance and incarcerated in a one-room mud-walled hut with 23 of his comrades.

Doolah does not exactly call it a double-cross. But he does not know why he was suddenly abandoned. “The Taliban left, and they left me behind,” he said, looking a bit bewildered.

Arghon said that Dostum will decide the prisoners’ fate, but that he expects they will be released soon.

Arghon said there do not appear to have been any foreign Taliban fighters among the holdouts in Balkh. But because so much of the wheeling and dealing took place behind closed doors, it is hard to know for sure.

Locals in the central market complained that besides weapons, some of the Northern Alliance soldiers confiscated vehicles and even stole sheep. Those reports could not be confirmed, but they would match traditional Afghan patterns.

Ex-farmer Ahmad does not care exactly how his fortunes changed. He is simply proud of his new position, of his American radio and of the new weapons carried by his men.

“See, here’s one,” he says, tugging on the elbow of one fighter, twisting him around to show the worn Kalashnikov slung over his back.

For the moment, the tides of war that have washed through this ancient settlement are flowing in his favor.