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Posted on 11/16/2001 9:18:00 PM PST by madrussian

A MAN is never lonelier than in the instant of death. For those murdered in Kabul, the devastated Afghan capital, before the Taliban came to power in 1996, the moment of execution was unimaginably horrific.

In a macabre ritual known as "dead men dancing", victims' heads were chopped off. Petrol was then pumped into their necks and set alight as the blood spurted out and the bodies jerked about in their death throes.

In Afghanistan, rape, mutilation and torture have been rife over the past decade. The skinning alive of victims has been a particular favourite of warring groups, along with the roasting of prisoners in containers left in the desert sun.

The Afghan warlord whose perverted mind dreamt up the "dead man dancing" routine was Abdul Ali Mazari, a leader of the Hazaras, Afghanistan's Persian-speaking ethnic minority. Mazari headed a group called Hizb-i-Wahdat, which is now a key part of the Northern Alliance, the loose confederation of militias that is the spearhead in Afghanistan of America's and Britain's war on terrorism.

Although Mazari is dead - captured and thrown out of a helicopter by the Taliban, according to one authoritative report - many of his followers who committed atrocities are alive. They are fighting with America's allies to topple the Taliban regime.

Despite concern that the human rights record of the Alliance is almost as bad as the Taliban's, America has developed a close relationship with its commanders from the northern ethnic minorities.

Over the next few days American special forces will try to ensure that the violent end to Taliban rule in Mazar-i-Sharif, the scene of many past atrocities, does not pave the way for retaliation by Alliance forces against local Pashtun civilians. But they may find themselves on the doorstep of murder once again.

The key figure is General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the hard-drinking ethnic Uzbek warlord who used to lead a ferocious militia and who has, at one time or another, allied himself with everybody, including the Taliban, and then betrayed them.

Dostum, whose infantry terrorised numerous villages in the early 1990s, is said to import peacocks from France for his garden and surrounds himself with an eclectic crew. His Washington representative, Homayun Naderi, drives a red sports car with tiger-skin seats during visits to Afghanistan, which remains littered with the carcasses of old tanks left behind after the Soviet occupation.

Naderi's uncle, Jaffar, an anti-Taliban commander, is reputed to warm up for battle by listening to the heavy metal music of AC/DC, saying: "Hells's Bells really gets me in the mood."

Jaffar was expelled from an English public school for striking a teacher, and joined a Harley Davidson gang in America before returning home.

Dostum himself is remembered for once punishing a soldier in Mazar-i-Sharif for stealing by crushing his body under a tank.

"General Dostum has a particularly wretched record across the board," said Sidney Jones, the Asian director of the respected New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch.

In May 1997, Uzbek and Hazara soldiers belonging to the Alliance killed 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war at Mazar-i-Sharif. The killing was carried out by General Abdul Malik, who had been Dostum's second-in-command until he turned on him and drove him from the city. Some of the prisoners were thrown down wells that were then blasted with grenades. At least 1,250 died in sealed containers.

Dostum's forces are also remembered for raping women and girls in Kabul, cutting off their breasts and tying their toes behind their heads.

The Americans might be wise to steer clear of another Alliance commander - General Rahim Dewana, or "crazy Rahim". Human rights groups are investigating reports that his troops rampaged through villages, burning houses and executing civilians two years ago in Sangcharak.

Likewise, the troops of Baba Jallandhar, a senior figure in the Panjshir valley, have been blamed for massacring Taliban prisoners during the retreat from Kabul in 1996. Their bodies were mutilated by the Hazaras, who hacked off noses and ears and stuck heads on poles as a warning to the Taliban.

Since September 11, President George W Bush has presented the conflict in Afghanistan in stark terms of good and evil. But as Washington backs the Alliance against the Taliban, the almost medieval cruelty of America's new allies may come back to haunt him.

Many of the commanders involved are senior Alliance figures, and are likely to feature in any future western-sponsored government. There is the added danger that giving the Alliance control over the majority Taliban could lead to a vicious civil war.

The Alliance supposedly supports the government ousted by the Taliban from Kabul in 1996, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, an Islamic cleric. Rabbani is the Alliance's political leader, has a seat at the United Nations and is now the recipient of American help to fight the Taliban.

The role that Rabbani's government played in supporting Osama Bin Laden may prove an embarrassment to Washington: it was this government that was in power when bin Laden first settled in Afghanistan in early 1996.

The Americans should also be aware that the warlords who make up the Alliance are among the key players in the heroin trade. A UN survey showed that 83% of the opium produced over the past year in Afghanistan came from Badakhshan province, which is controlled by the Northern Alliance.

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