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From amongst the believers are men who have been true to the oath they made with Allah. From them are those who have fulfilled this oath (been martyred in Allah's Way) and from them are those who are still waiting, but they have never changed in their determination in the least.[Quran 33:23[ Three days after the Mujahideen prisoner revolt began in Mazar-i-Sharif, the last Mujahideen fighters were killed, fighting, as they vowed, to the last drop of blood. Hundreds of these Mujahideen, in a pre-planned martyrdom operation, managed to kill over 500 Alliance troops and dozens of US and British ...

<p>Infantry from the Army's 10th Mountain Division have crossed from Uzbekistan into northern Afghanistan to serve as a quick-reaction force in case of renewed Taliban resistance around the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, officials said Wednesday.</p> <p>The force is comprised of no more than two dozen soldiers, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. One official said the numbers might be increased.</p>

Photos from the captured fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif [11/28/01]. Several hundred foreign fighters fighting for the Taliban were killed during three days of fighting.

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Nov 29, 2001 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- With a loud boom and a mushroom cloud rising into the air, U.S. special forces cleared unexploded ammunition Thursday from around Mazar-e-Sharif's main airport, working to open the way for humanitarian aid flights. A group of 10 special forces troops piled ammunition into a 10-foot-deep crater and set it off by remote control. Nearby, local residents used picks and shovels to patch up the runway, which officials said they hoped could be ready for flights in eight days. The airport still bore heavy scars, its main runway pockmarked with ...

Survivors found at Mazar fort More than 80 survivors have come out alive from the ruins of an Afghan fort-prison where hundreds of their colleagues were killed in a three-day revolt earlier this week. A New York Times journalist, James Hill, told the BBC that 13 men surrendered on Friday - the rest emerged on Saturday after Northern Alliance forces flooded their hiding place in the fort's basement. Speaking to the BBC World Service programme Newshour, Mr Hill said it appeared the men - many of whom were badly injured - had run out of ammunition and had not eaten ...

PARIS, Dec 02, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- About 40 French soldiers entered the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Saturday to secure and rebuild the airport so humanitarian aid can get through, the Defense Ministry said."The French components have as their mission to secure the perimeter of the airport during the time it takes to restore the runway," the ministry said in a statement released late Saturday.A ministry spokesman said the operation by the French forces will consist largely of mine-clearing and filling of craters caused by bombing from the U.S.-led coalition carrying out air strikes in ...

<p>MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AP) -- An explosion ripped through a market in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, wounding 100 people, hospital officials and witnesses said.</p> <p>The blast occurred late Thursday afternoon. One of the wounded said he saw a fragmentation grenade roll into the moneychangers' section of the central market before the explosion.</p>

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AP) - An explosion ripped through the central market in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, injuring 100 people, six of them seriously, according to hospital officials and witnesses. One of the wounded said he had seen a 32-piece fragmentation grenade rolled into the moneychangers' section of the bazaar just before the late afternoon blast. There was no known suspect in the attack. Local Health Minister Mirwais Rabde Sherzod called the explosion a terrorist act. "The people who did this meant to destroy the peace and tranquility of our city," Sherzod told reporters. Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest ...

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: The US army soldiers stopped their van suddenly in the middle of a busy intersection, beckoned to the officer directing traffic from atop a concrete podium and handed him a new silver whistle. The officer, who had been using a black-and-white striped club to keep traffic flowing, smiled at the soldiers, jammed the gift into his mouth and whistled them along. Mission accomplished for a small team of soldiers waging a sort of charm offensive to win hearts and minds in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The soldiers have been handing out notebooks at schools, visiting refugee camps ...

YOL ABAD, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - Nearly two months after the Taliban were routed from Mazar-e-Sharif, fighting still flares in villages around the northern city as warlords sort out the complex web of Afghan rivalries. Along both sides of the narrow, dusty road outside the tiny village of Yol Abad blood stains market spots where soldiers were gunned down just days ago. Details of what started the shooting Saturday are murky; that it happened is taken as a matter of course. Skirmishes are reported several times a week in the region around Mazar-e-Sharif as militias controlled by ...

Soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division,, based at Fort Drum, helped build a hospital out of tents in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The new facility, which opened Tuesday, includes a large clinic, pharmacy tent, six ward tents, a triage tent and a radiology tent. The 200-member staff, including 27 doctors, is supplied by Jordanian military. &quot;In 10 days, we built a hospital,&quot; said Dr. Ziad F. Al-Shraideh, an anesthesiologist who works at the new facility. &quot;Medical supplies and equipment are far superior (here) to traditional Afghan hospitals.&quot; Under Taliban rule, routine medical care was hard to find, ...

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Mar 20, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Gen. Anwar Quaraishi struts around the plaza surrounding this northern Afghan city's famous blue mosque, eyeing troops in new dark-green camouflage uniforms and fur-collared coats preparing Wednesday to keep the peace during Persian New Year celebrations.Mazar-e-Sharif is getting ready to put on its largest party since the Taliban left to celebrate the holiday Thursday with an expected 1 million revelers from across northern Afghanistan. And with that, the city, renowned for vicious ethnic clashes, has put in place some of the strictest security ever seen here.More than four months since...

GOTTA SEE THIS -OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM 4/9/02 <========================> REPORT FROM THEATRE 1 - Afghanistan In Kabul, British Royal Marines arrive and then practice accuracy and precision. 31 miles west of Kabu, the control center of the Kabul hydroelectric power. In Kabul, at the bazaar, extending to the river. In Kabul, at the Buzkashi game. No matter what universe you are from, that has to hurt. In Kabul, kite flying is legal, thanks to President Bush and the USA. Kite Wars. Even kite fights are taken seriously, using poles and barbed wires to destroy each others kites. Somewhere between Kabul and...

DoD News Briefing Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz Monday, July 15, 2002 EDT (Media Availability at Jordanian Hospital, Mazar-i Sharif) The Jordanians have been with us since December 23rd. They came in when it was still dangerous around here. They came in even though it is a small country with a very substantial contribution and I've been watching those numbers grow over the months. That it's now over 80,000 people they have treated in over a thousand operations and you can see the conditions under which they have to do it all. It's really wonderful. Obviously it would be...

A documentary with never before seen video will air in 30 minutes on the Mazar-i-Sharif uprising on CNN. If you remember about a dozen US and British special forces arrived and kiled about 400 Talis (admittedly with some help later on from air power). It was a good kill ratio that day.

<p>War often brings Americans together. In the case of Johnny Michael Spann and John Walker Lindh, however, it also set them apart.</p> <p>Last December the CIA's Mr. Spann was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, after being murdered in a prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, that the captured Lindh somehow survived. On Friday, Lindh was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his service to the Taliban.</p>

  Special Forces Officer Honored for Heroism in Mazar-e-Sharif Prison Battle   By Jennifer K. Whittle & Army Reserve 1st Lt. Steve AlvarezSpecial to American Forces Press Service MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Nov. 14, 2003 — The first Distinguished Service Cross awarded since the Vietnam War, and the highest military decoration awarded to date in the war on terror, was presented today to Army Special Forces Maj. Mark Mitchell.Mitchell earned the medal for his leadership during the Battle of Qala-I-Jangi Fortress during Operation Enduring Freedom. He was the ground force commander of a rescue operation where he ensured the...

Esquire August 2002 Pg. 106 War Stories: Mazar-i-Sharif Matt is a staff sergeant in the Air Commandos. With his radio, he can do things on a battlefield that no one has ever done before. When he arrived in Afghanistan, the first major engagement of the war hadn't started yet. He would start it. By Wil S. Hylton In the early light, he stood on the mountain with the buoyant and spirited Northern Alliance soldiers behind him in their mud huts, bickering and laughing around their fires and their pots of boiling water, but he scarcely heard their noise. He stood...

WASHINGTON, Nov 15, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan are taking part in combat operations against the Taliban and have had close scrapes with enemy fire, according to two unclassified dispatches from troops Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz released Nov. 14. The messages, dated Oct. 25 and Nov. 10, describe scenes of great bravery and danger, and indicate some of the apparently easy battles were more harrowing than they appeared. A U.S. element was nearly overrun by Taliban troops on Nov. 6 but remained in position to call in air support from U.S. ...

It had been called a massacre in which none survived. But yesterday 84 Taliban fighters emerged alive from the bloodiest battle of the war. Matthew Campbell, in Qala-i-Janghi fort, reports how captivity turned to carnage Dazed and exhausted, they emerged from the bunker in which nobody was meant to have survived. Yesterday, inside the fort where the most savage battle of the war had taken place, more than 80 Taliban fighters straggled out into the daylight, hands in the air, some walking, some half-dead.It seemed inconceivable that anybody could have lived through the carnage that had erupted a week ago ...