KABUL, Nov 13: They poured onto the streets in tens of thousands, emptied the Taliban prisons, prayed and rejoiced at the return of once-forbidden music. It was freedom Kabul-style.
Huge crowds cheered “Allah u akbar (God is Great)” as Northern Alliance troops entered Kabul, sparking celebrations at the end of five years of Taliban rule.
People in the war-ravaged city awoke to find that the rules of the radical movement no longer determined the clothes they wore or the length of their beards.
Black turbans, the Taliban’s trademark, hung from the gate of the police headquarters after opposition security troops took control of the city shortly after dawn.
The Northern Alliance’s triumphant march on the capital was largely without blood. But a group of hardcore Arab fighters, possibly loyal to Osama bin Laden, staged a last stand in the Shari Naw area.
Six bullet-riddled bodies were later dumped in a nearby park. “Death to Pakistan, Death to terrorists”, shouted a crowd of several hundred who gathered in the park, many spitting on the remains.
An official of the International Committee of the Red Cross who led attempts to recover the remains said up to 20 bodies might be in the park.
A group of 360 prisoners from inside the Taliban police headquarters were freed and a jail for religious offenders was also emptied, witnesses said.
For many Kabul residents, happiness was not so much an expression of support for the Northern Alliance as an outpouring of relief that the Taliban had gone.
But there was also fear that the latest upheaval in Kabul’s tumultuous history would see a return to the lawlessness and anarchy which characterized the 1992-1996 mujahideen government.
That regime, which followed the collapse of a Moscow-backed government, included several of the Northern Alliance ethnic factions which returned to Kabul on Tuesday.
“If the opposition forces are able to keep security, and ethnic differences do not emerge among them, then I will be very happy to see them back in Kabul because the Taliban were a tyrannical regime,” said 58-year-old resident Abdul Gafoor.
“But if the opposition forces repeat the atrocities of six years earlier, that will be a tragedy for Afghanistan and especially for Kabul.”
The opposition dispatched police units and other security forces to all corners of the city after reports of shooting by the Taliban fighters holed up in abandoned strongholds.
Armed soldiers chased looters carrying carpets and other goods stolen from markets.
But there was also a party atmosphere on the streets. Dozens of men theatrically threw away their turbans to symbolize their freedom from the former regime.
Barbers reported brisk business as men trimmed or shaved off their beards.
“The Taliban threw me in jail for three days just because they didn’t like the fact I cut my beard. They were cruel killers and life here can only get better now that they have gone,” said Mohammed Nahim, a 23-year-old Tajik.
Another symbolic moment prompted shrieks of joy when Radio Afghanistan began broadcasting music for the first time in five years.
Listeners carrying transistor radios in the street whooped with delight as the Taliban’s restrictions on music ended and a woman’s voice — a symbolic choice given the Taliban’s ban on women’s employment — broadcast the news.
“I don’t believe this. I never thought that a time would come when I would be reading the news again. As I read the news this morning it was like a dream,” said radio announcer Jamila Mujahid, 40.—AFP
