Fall of Mazari Sharif - Battle

Battle

There were initially rumors that the Afghan fighters were unimpressed by the American bombardment and refused to advance on the city, but at 2 p.m., Northern Alliance forces, under the command of generals Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ustad Atta Mohammed Noor, swept across the Pul-i-Imam Bukhri bridge, and seized the city's main military base and airport. They had originally been holding a position 22 kilometres outside the city.

The "ragtag" non-uniformed Northern Alliance forces entered the city from the Balk Valley on "begged, borrowed and confiscated transportation," and met only light resistance.

After outlying villages fell from precision air strikes on key command and control centers, approximately 5,000-12,000 Taliban and foreign fighters - including Chechen, Pakistan, Arabs, Uzbeks and Chinese Uyghurs, began their withdrawal from the city towards Kunduz, in pickup trucks, SUVs and flat bed trucks fitted with ZSU 23-2's (anti-aircraft guns modified for ground combat), to regroup. By sunset, the Taliban forces had retreated to the north and east, while there were fears that they were massing for a counter-offensive. It was later estimated that 400-600 people had died in the battle, although it was not possible to separate the numbers of civilians from combatants.

Approximately 1,500 Taliban were captured or defected to the U.S. backed opposition.

Upholding the claim by Taliban officials that they would be able to move 500 fresh fighters into the city, as many as 900 Pakistani fighters reached Mazar-e-sharif in the following days as the majority of the Taliban were evacuating. It was determined later that many of these young fighters were recruited by a Pakistani Mullah, Sufi Mohammed, who used a loudspeaker riveted onto pickup trucks which blared "Those who die fighting for God don't die! Those who go on jihad live forever, in paradise!"

When these volunteers reached the city in the days as the Taliban were evacuating, many of them were alone and confused. The group, chiefly consisting of underage boys, gathered in the Sultan Razia Girls' School, where they began negotiating their surrender, but hundreds of them were ultimately killed.

For almost two days as the group gathered in the abandoned Sultan Razia Girls' School building up their fighting positions, the town officials and Northern Alliance attempted negotiations for their surrender, but the fighters vehemently refused, ultimately killing two peace envoys, one town mullah and a soldier escort. All the while they constantly fired at anyone that moved within the vicinity of the building, including civilian bystanders. After the murders of the envoys, the Northern Alliance began returning fire on the school with machine guns with little effect. This gun battle went on for hours. Inside the battered school, someone scrawled on the walls the words of their mullah: "Die for Pakistan" and "Never Surrender." At mid-afternoon, U.S. military advisers approved the building for a bombing run. "We had determined the school was an appropriate target," said Army Col. Rick Thomas of the U.S. Central Command. "Our philosophy has been surrender or die."

Officials from the United Nations and other organisations suggested that it may have been a massacre by Northern Alliance troops after they surrendered in the school moments before an American warplane dropped two, or four, 1000-pound bombs, resulting in the Taliban members scattering quickly to escape, and the Northern Alliance shooting them as they fled, resulting in an alleged 800 fatalities. Later reports suggested instead that the Northern Alliance had shelled the school, rather than an American warplane dropping bombs on it, but following the battle, United States Air Force Sgt. Stephen E. Tomat was awarded the Silver Star for calling in the air strike on six vehicles and a school.

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