Restrain the Northern Alliance

Is your enemy’s enemy necessarily your friend? Not if that supposed friend is the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban coalition that controls less than 10% of Afghanistan’s territory. Despite massive aid from both Russia and Iran, this resistance movement looked on the verge of collapse even before Osama bin Laden’s hitmen killed its charismatic field commander, General Massoud days before the terrorist attacks on America. The events of September 11th put the Alliance back in the picture. Now it is preparing to launch its own attack on Kabul, with or without a nod from the US. Its leaders are forming a 2,000-man police force to patrol the Afghan capital if and when the Alliance captures it.