Now, it’s Mazar-i Sharif:
Around 20 tribal elders have been killed in Balkh over the past three years, according to a tally by Pajhwok Afghan News, but residents say the number has exceeded 30.
Some of the more prominent include Nadir Shah, Musa Jan, Malim Asad, Abdul Hameed and Hayatullah, along with Commander Chagha Dar, Noor Muhamamd Bai, Fazal Rahman and Shafiq, who were killed in Char Bolak, Balkh, Sholgar and Chamtal districts…
A few days earlier, hundreds of tribal elders in Gardez, capital of southeastern Paktia province, in a show of solidarity, called on the government to prevent assassinations which were mostly happening in the northern provinces.
This is worrying on several fronts: something like 70 Pashtun elders in Balkh have been killed since 2001, but something like 30 of those have been in the last year. The Taliban have an established a pattern whereby they kill off major figures in a community whilst encircling it and cementing their presence and enforcing control—like in the Arghandab in 2007. ISAF is still paying the price for declining to address, or arrest the decline in Kandahar during that time, and the precisely same pattern is repeating itself in the North.
The biggest different? Atta and his crew of thugs are keeping Mazar-i Sharif itself bottled up tightly enough the Taliban aren’t bothering. Yet. How long until that changes?