2. Amu Darya

Late in the afternoon, on November 8, at the river which marks the Afghan border is the color of mercury and the Taliban are shelling the Northern Alliance in the hills above Dash-e Qal'eh, less than a mile away. The timing of the artillery is predictable and they aim for the ferry but they never hit it. A shell comes with a mocking sound which you hear and then brings the shockwave rolling out through the air. When the shelling starts again, the opposite bank of the river comes into focus, a series of low hills without vegetation, unmarked except for a scattering of mud brick houses. The men on the other side have Kalashnikovs and are dressed in traditional tribal clothes. They are calm and unafraid. They are wrapped up in their wool blankets the exact color of dust, rifles slung over their shoulders.

The ferry begins its trip back toward us, a dilapidated barge powered by a tractor engine which slowly winds a cable over a steel spool so it can haul itself across the river, and it is empty except for the ragged pilot. We stand on the bank handing over documents to the Russian military intelligence officers. When the ferry arrives, we are told to keep the gear off to the sides, leaving the strip down the middle empty. The Afghans waiting to cross back over then boarded a garishly decorated Pakistani bus and drove it on to the ferry platform with extraordinary skill. They hang on to its sides as we make the crossing. While the ferry is halfway across of the river, a shell hits to the west. The surrounding hills turn blue, then black as night falls.

Back in the U.S. official statements about the progress of the war have nothing to convey except the dead falsehoods of administration officials. Then on November 9, Washington breaks its stride by releasing actual information. General Tommy Franks tells reporters that there is a big fight going on in the area of Mazar-i-Sharif. Taliban forces are cut off from the west and south, but the details of the military situation are unclear. Northern Alliance fighters under the command of Ata Mohammed have advanced north along what is left of Afghanistan's highway and the Balkh river and have taken Shulgareh. Officials of the Red Cross say that there are as many as 280,000 civilians trapped outside the city, afraid of being killed during the final battle for the town. Mazar is a strategic prize, because it lies on a line that connects the capital, Kabul, with Uzbekistan. Its surrender would create a vital supply route for the Northern Alliance forces. After the city fell, it would become a transshipment point for Taliban prisoners, many of whom would die in sealed shipping containers set out in the desert while American soldiers did nothing. Allegations of torture and summary execution of prisoners at Mazar were dismissed by U.S. officials as false despite the discovery of a mass grave site out in the desert and numerous eye-witnesses to the killings. Mazar falls on November 9th when Taliban forces retreat after a U.S. air strike on their headquarters.

We drive away from the river in a convoy of Toyota pickups and Russian trucks, heading into a landscape of dust. The convoy passes men who have set up shop in shipping containers and wooden crates docketed into the hills. They sell gum and batteries and cans of Pepsi. We drive on to Khojja Bahaoudin, the dirty garrison town that serves as the capital of the Northern Alliance where I ask if I can stay the night in the walled compound shared by CBS and ABC. Byron Pitts of CBS asks around and makes sure that I could regroup there for a little while. "I don't know what you're to do tomorrow, but I think I got you one night." Inside, the courtyard is piled high with canned food from around the world. Russian salmon, Finnish tuna, Iranian cookies, enough to feed the entire province. It is stacked neatly in aisles like a supermarket. I find a tent near the latrine and the two generators that run all night while two network engineers sent their feeds to New York in state of constant panic and irritation. Pitts is right about the hospitality running out. In the morning, a producer for CBS throws me out, saying, "I can tell you exactly how long you're staying. You're leaving right now." He yells like a mean drunk to make sure he gets his point across. Then the compound gate opens and the sky goes white as a dust storm rolls out over the desert. A pickup comes down the dirt road and pulls up with a young Afghan official from the Northern Alliance and tells me to get in.

3. Allahu Akhbar

Thick black hair, cut close to his head, high and tight, his eyes focused on his laptop screen, Jack is very publicly working away on the wooden table in the courtyard of the guest house and muttering to himself. Jack is a short, stocky guy with a loud voice and he reminds me of a cop. Every so often, he shakes his head as if he can't believe what's happening to his machine. We exchange pleasantries. Jack won't say what he's doing in Afghanistan, but on the right shoulder of his black bomber jacket is a large American flag patch, and when anyone passes close enough to his laptop to catch a glimpse of his work, he gives it a quick twist to keep it out of view. Jack is an angry man and curses his bad luck, talks about the Russians on the Tajik border with derision, and makes a point of characterizing all journalists as war tourists. Jack also wants everyone to think that he works for U.S. intelligence. He tells me that the number of Russian troops on the border far exceeds the 30,000 that is widely believed, and winks when asked how he came by that piece of information. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you," Jack says. As soon as he says this, it's obvious that he's a fraud. The others treat him like he's a joke. Four years later, Jack Idema would be convicted in an Afghan court for running a private prison in Kabul where he tortured and abused his own Al Qaeda suspects, some found hanging from their feet during a raid. Although the CIA said that they had no contact with him, Idema told everyone who would listen that he was working under the auspices of the U.S. and Afghan governments. In fact, wire fraud, felony convictions, and a bad military record were the only real credentials Idema could claim, but he was able to convince television producers at CBS he was a legitimate source for counterterrorism material. He fit right in. When news broke about his crimes, he was vilified, but he wasn't the only American who treated Afghanistan as a personal fantasy camp because this was the true nature of the war. He was just its empty soul.

The mud brick guesthouse is run by the Foreign Ministry of the Northern Alliance, who are mostly Kabul-educated young men who get a kick from acting like the Mafia. They control access to Northern Alliance helicopter flights and require all journalists to carry permission letters to travel to other cities. The letters are handwritten in Dari on carbon paper, stamped, and signed with a flourish. They are also a complete waste of time. Staying at the guesthouse requires official per-mission, and after paying twenty dollars I win a space on the floor next to an Italian photographer, Elio Colavolpe, who has just come from the Panjshir valley. Dinner is knob of lamb and greasy rice set out by a fighter, not one of the Foreign Ministry men this time, and there are twelve or thirteen of us by now, crowded around the rough table. Foreigners are trickling in. We talk about where to go next. The energy is intense but directionless and most of the reporters are keeping their destinations a secret, spending all their time trying to get on helicopter flights to other towns and figure out where the others are going. The TV people do their stand-ups from the guesthouse courtyard, making it up as they go along, a source of great amusement to the rest of the press corps. During dinner, the dust storm dies, leaving a clear night sky, and the bitter wood smoke from hundreds of cooking fires takes its place.

The Fall of Taloqan, was commissioned and edited by Ian Morris at the Triquarterly and appeared in issue 115. Ian is one of the great literary editors working today and without him there wouldn't have been a published piece at all. This was the cover story and was published with photographs.

LEAD IMAGE: 26 November 2001. Kunduz, Afghanistan. Northern Alliance fighters on the road to Kunduz.
Photo: Phillip Robertson