afghan city falls to warlord - another failure in the making

[historian]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=7&u=/nm/20040408/ts_nm/afghan_fighting_dc

[papau]

1. And the US complains about the Afghan Pres responding!

Afghan City Falls to Commander as Troops Fly In
By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Forces of a renegade adviser to President Hamid Karzai overran the capital of a northern province on Thursday, creating a fresh security headache for Afghanistan's Western-backed government.

General Abdul Rashid Dostum's largely ethnic Uzbek militia invaded Faryab from neighboring provinces on Wednesday, prompting the central government to send national troops there on Thursday in an attempt to maintain control.<snip>

Karzai rushed 1,500 troops of the national army -- which has a combat strength of only about 8,000 -- to Herat, prompting expressions of concern from the U.S. military that this took up resources that should be pursuing Taliban and al Qaeda militants.