BRIEF

Foreign Taliban Surrender

On Saturday, November 24th, 2001, foreign Taliban troops from Kunduz surrendered to Northern Alliance forces under the command of Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum on the road between Kunduz and Mazar-i Sharif.  At the time Kunduz was the last major city in the north still under Taliban control.  Mazar-i Sharif had fallen more than a week earlier and General Dostum was exercising his regional power to participate in the turnover of Kunduz to anti-Taliban forces.  However, negotiations faltered when it came to the fate of the international, or foreign, Taliban.  It was agreed that as many as five hundred of these foreign fighters would surrender to General Dostum at a pre-designated point not far from Mazar-i Sharif.

There have been various accounts of events leading up to the desert meeting on that Saturday, including reports that the Taliban commanders in charge of Kunduz “sold out” the foreign elements within their ranks as part of the surrender agreement with Northern Alliance leaders—that foreign fighters were led to believe that they would be able to leave Afghanistan peacefully with their weapons.

In many cases Afghan Taliban simply changed sides as so many of their Northern Alliance counterparts had done in the past--including General Dostum himself.  However, there was no easy resolution to the matter of foreigners operating in Afghanistan.  Many Northern Alliance soldiers had open disdain for the foreigners and on many occasions there was a sense that a peaceful resolution was unlikely.  Only day’s earlier, General Dostum, with support of U.S. air strikes, had attacked and killed a couple hundred Pakistani Taliban holed up in the Girls School in Mazar e Sharif.

Several U.S. Special Forces elements were also present at the desert meeting place, at least temporarily.  The unit shown is likely ODA 595.  There were two ODAs operating in Mazar at this time, 534 and 595.  However, ODA 595 was attached to General Dostum while ODA 534 was attached to Osted Atta (the Tajik co-commander of Mazar).  Since it was Dostum who met the foreign Taliban prisoners on the road, on his way to Kunduz, it is likely that the Special Forces personnel at the meeting place belonged to ODA 595.

Among the forces accompanying Dostum was subordinate commander Mustafa Qul’s column of T-55 tanks.  The T-55 entered production in 1958.  Although its performance was a significant improvement over the T-54, the T-55 was not particularly distinct from its forbear in appearance or overall design.  Still among the most common tanks in the world (and often considered the most common tank), the T-55 was widely deployed and saw action in numerous conflicts in the decades following its introduction, including the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1968 and 1973, and the wars in Vietnam and Uganda.

The Soviet Union had stopped production of the T-55 by 1981, just two year after the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan.  It remained in second-line service in the Soviet armed forces, however, and continued to see use at the hands of Soviet satellite states, many of whom received significant numbers of T-55s.  One of these states, of course, was the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and the T-55 saw significant use there.

In spite of having long-since entered obsolescence in the context of conventional tank engagements, the T-55 retains a handful of advantages.  Its combination of a high-velocity gun (100mm), a low profile, and remarkably good range endurance makes it a valuable asset on the irregular battlefields and terrain of Afghanistan, where it is unlikely to encounter more modern armor.

Additional Afghanistan Material by CFR:

For an inside look at reporting the uprising at Qala Jangi see CFR’s feature length documentary Fog and Friction. CFR Director Dodge Billingsley and TIME Magazine’s Alex Perry were there as the battle unfolded, trying to make sense of this watershed event in the war for Afghanistan.

Qala-i Jangi Satellite Imagery

Spann Interrogates John Walker at Qala-i Jangi Transcript

Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan