The Bloody History of "The Noble Tomb"

Twice in the past four years, Northern Alliance commander Rashid Dostum has had to flee Mazar-i-Sharif, the city he once ruled. Once he had to bribe his own men to let him out of town before the Taliban arrived. But last Friday Dostum re-entered the city in triumph. It was Mazar's latest--but perhaps not its last--reversal of fortune.

The city's name means "the Noble Tomb." Thousands have died there since 1997. But until then it was untouched by Afghanistan's two decades of war. The city takes its name from the Blue Mosque there, where Ali--Muhammad's son-in-law and the fourth Caliph--is said to be buried. Alexander the Great slept in Mazar. Genghis Khan and Silk Road traders passed through. Only 35 miles from Uzbekistan's border, the city was a valuable supply depot for the Soviets, who left it in Dostum's hands.

But his deputy betrayed him in May 1997, turning the city over to the Taliban while Dostum fled to Turkey. The local Uzbeks and Hazaras rose in revolt. They took back the city, drove 2,000 of the mostly Pashtun Taliban into the desert in large container trucks and buried them in mass graves. Half died in the containers. Others were shot and thrown in wells, grenades tossed in behind them. Some were buried alive.

When Taliban fighters retook the city, they killed 8,000, particularly the Shi'ite Hazaras, and left corpses rotting in the streets. Now Dostum and his allies own the city again, and Pashtun are fleeing because they fear massacre.