Afghanistan: North against south

The situation in Afghanistan is becoming more clear. All interested parties inside and outside of the country have made their first probing steps on the political field called Afghanistan.

The Afghan provisional government’s head, Hamid Karzai, called the US to neverleave Afghanistan, Washington Post reports. According to it, Karzai promised that in exchange for the United States never leaving, Afghanistan would the United States’ “good, reliable friend and ally." He expressed support of US efforts in searching and annihilating Osama bin Laden, mullah Mohammad Omar, and other participants of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan. The provisional government’s head criticized the US for leaving Afghanistan 12 years ago alone with Pakistan and Iran, which made for spreading radical Islam in the country, the kind practiced by Osama bin Laden.

However, Mr Karzai has nothing to be worry about: Americans will not leave Afghanistan under any conditions. They will build military bases there in accordance with the pocket Security Council of UNO; they will give loans that the grandsons and great-grandsons of today’s Afghanis will have pay off.

The same already took place in Grenada, Salvador, and elsewhere. The prospect seems to be not very bright, though here is nothing the US could be reproached with. Another country in its place would do the same. Pakistan was carrying out a similar policy for many years. Therefore, if the situation does not change, Afghanistan will be soon divided into two parts, the north and the south. In northern Afghanistan, there are Tajiks and Uzbeks controlled by Russia, and in southern Afghanistan, the Pushtun tribes controlled by the US and Pakistan. In the center, there will be a buffer zone controlled by UN peace-keepers.

According to today’s reports coming from Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance decided beforehand to secure power for itself in case of possible troubles with former allies from the anti-Taliban coalition. The Northern Alliance’s commander and defence minister of Islamic State of Afghanistan, General Mohammad Kasim Fakhim, ordered the transport of arms and food from Kabul to Panjar Valley just after Afghan capital was occupied by forces of the united front on November 13.

According to NNI agency, known for its connections with Pakistani intelligence, the Northern Alliance is planning to create ammunition depots in Panjsher before the new administration will come to power on December 22 and the peace-keeping contingent enters Kabul. Therefore, a base of the Northern Alliance’s allies will remain near Kabul, a city which most likely will be demilitarized. Pakistani observers notice that the so-called Panjsher group (ethnic Tajiks: internal minister Yunus Kanuni, the defence minister, General Fakhim, the foreign minister, and Dr. Abdullo) now has to cooperate with the Khandahar group (southern Pushtuns headed by the new premier, Khamid Karzai). Relations between these two groups have always been very strained.

One bloody war between the North and the South is known in history. Another such war might be repeated.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/12/11/34725.html