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Send to Outlook International, | PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU Tahiti Makecheques & POs payable to paradise and the bomb Outlook International. Name Address Post Code Telephone Block capitals please Bosnia's Pax Americana Back to 1968 ?| Rabbani-Masood government to an all-party transitional administration.
War-weary Afghans had hoped the Soviet Union's withdrawal in 1989 would end the conflict. But it dragged on.
So far it has claimed up to one million lives, maimed hundreds of thousands, and driven more to seek refuge in Pakistan and Iran.
This is no longer a jihad waged under the banner of Islam and nationalism. It is a fight for political dominance berween competing ethnic militias for the spoils of power.
The Taliban consists of Pashtuns from the south of the country whose kin-folk are the Pashtuns in Pakistan's north-west frontier province.
They are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, resentful of Tajiks such as Burhanuddin Rabbani and his strong-man Ahmad Shah Masood in the Kabul administration When they gain control of an area they impose harsh restrictions on women that include compulsory wearing of the head-dress. removal of girls from schools and forbidding waged-work for women.
In the north. Uzbek leader and excommunist Rashid Dostam can count on his allies in Uzbekistan for arms and money. The Uzbek government fears the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.
In the ever shifting sands of Afghan politics Dostam has now made Onlooker surveys Kabul devastation peace with the Taliban in order to dislodge the current government.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states are financing the Taliban while the Kabul regime receives aid and military hardware from India Russia and Tajikistan.
The US wishes to contain the growing influence of Iran in central asia. As the Iranians back Kabul, the L'S weighs in behind its enemies.
Imperialism has never minded using Islamic groups when it needs to. despite the hysteria about Islam.
Socialist Outlook 98 • March 2, 1996.