X-URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31066-2001Oct21.html
Mazar-e Sharif Seen Pivotal in Getting Aid to Millions
Uzbekistan Won't Open Corridor for Food Transport Until Alliance
Controls Key Northern Town
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2001; Page A11
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Oct. 21 -- In the continuing battle for control
of the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e Sharif, more is at stake than
military victory. Aid officials said today that the town is acrucial
gateway for delivering food to millions of Afghans who face hunger in
the approaching winter.
The town, now controlled by the ruling Taliban militia, has been at
the center of attention in recent weeks as units of the Northern
Alliance, a loose coalition of anti-Taliban fighters, have tried to
dislodge their rivals.
Relief agencies expressed hope that an ouster of the Taliban from
Mazar-e Sharif will put much of northern Afghanistan under the control
of the Northern Alliance, and persuade the Uzbek government to open a
corridor from the southern Uzbek town of Termez, 50 miles away, to
move massive amounts of desperately needed food.
"We need Termez. It has the basic infrastructure. It has the bridge.
We could do thousands of tons a day through Termez," Ardag
Meghdessian, a top U.N. World Food Program official, said by phone
from Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Without solid control of the north by the alliance, Uzbek authorities
have said they will not open the corridor at Termez into Afghanistan.
The bridge there, once the major access route for Soviet troops, has
been closed since the Taliban seized control on the Afghan side in
1997.
Ending that control requires a conclusive victory by the Northern
Alliance at Mazar-e Sharif, but the reports of fighting there have
been contradictory. Today, the alliance seemed to be further away from
taking the town than before, according to a resident who spoke by
satellite phone.
"The Northern Alliance forces have retreated farther from town," he
said. The fighting was now far enough away that only the deep-throated
tank fire -- and not the rattle of small arms -- could be heard, he
said.
U.S. warplanes struck a radio station in the town, according to the
resident, who for his safety asked not to be named. But he said they
still seemed restrained in their bombardment of the Taliban forces.
"The Americans don't want [the Northern Alliance] to take this town
now. When they do, it will happen," the resident said. He added, "Then
I will dig up the Kalashnikov I buried and help them."
Northern Alliance commanders have complained that the U.S.-led
coalition forces have offered token bombing of the Taliban on the
front lines. They say the United States appears willing to let the
alliance remain stuck in the battlefield while American forces strike
behind Taliban lines.
This has implications for the relief effort. The Bush administration
has said that 1.5 million Afghans are at risk of starvation after what
some authorities call the worst drought in 70 years. Relief officials
say the drought throughout the region, which has devastated the food
supply, threatens disaster on a far larger scale than the war.
The war, however, is complicating relief efforts. Aid organizations
have pulled out most of their international staff. U.S. bombs
destroyed one Red Cross warehouse holding relief supplies, and the
Taliban seized two World Food Program warehouses, although Meghdessian
said that one of those has been returned to the group's control with
its supplies intact.
The United States has dropped packets of food, but officials have
acknowledged that they have more symbolic value than significant
impact. Major quantities of food aid must come by truck or barge. U.N.
agencies on Sept. 30 resumed aid shipments, which were suspended after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
"The food is moving," Meghdessian said. "The real heroes in this
humanitarian race against time are our Afghan colleagues who have
remained inside and are distributing food despite the death threats,
despite the bombings."
He said contact with them has been "spotty" because the Taliban has
banned workers inside Afghanistan from using satellite or radio
communications. "If anyone communicates with the international staff,
it's execution on the spot," he said.
Meghdessian estimates that 6 million Afghans will need food. Shipments
are now coming into southern Afghanistan from Pakistan, and in more
limited quantities to northern Afghanistan from Tajikistan, Iran and
Turkmenistan. But winter weather on the mountain passes will choke
these northern routes.
"Winter makes everything worse. And it will be there in two to four
weeks," said Dominic Caron of the International Committee of the Red
Cross in Tashkent.
That heightens the need for relief agencies to use Termez. "Termez may
be the best Central Asian corridor for humanitarian aid," said Parvin
Paidan, program director for Central Asia of Save the Children-U.K.
But "everybody is trying to plan in a vacuum," she noted. "The border
is closed and everyone is trying to second-guess the government."
The Uzbek government "does have legitimate security concerns. They are
afraid the Taliban may find an escape route," Paidan said. "We feel
they won't open the border until the area is completely cleared of
Taliban."
Termez "is not the only way in, but it's the best," said Daniel
Brechbuhler, a surgeon who works with the Red Cross, which is
attempting to resupply the warehouse destroyed by U.S. bombs.
"The problem is the central provinces of Afghanistan," he said.
"Substantial relief, to get to them, has to come on the ground. But in
order to put in the logistics, you have to have security in the
region. It has to be safe."