ISLAMABAD, Nov 12: Ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum has reopened the shrine after which Mazar-i-Sharif is named and offered prayers for the first time since it was closed by the Taliban, his spokesman said on Monday.

Two days after capturing the city that was his powerbase through most of the 1990s, Dostum on Sunday flung open the gates to the fabled, blue-tiled Tomb of Hazrat Ali, shut down by the Taliban when they seized the city in 1998.

“Dostum went into the shrine and offered his prayers,” Zaki said.

Thousands of residents of the town, including many weeping women, followed the burly warlord into the shrine, Zaki said.

Dostum was surrounded by residents, who are mainly minority Uzbeks and Tajiks, eager to voice their delight at his capture of the town, Zaki said.

The warlord also visited the airport, which he described as slightly damaged by the US air raids.

Dostum needed to establish whether the field had been mined by the Taliban and once these checks had been completed, the airstrip might be opened to flights, the spokesman said.

Trying to return Mazar-i-Sharif to its pre-Taliban status, Dostum had already started to broadcast over the radio and planned to restart the local television station — Balkh Television — as soon as possible, Zaki said.—Reuters