WASHINGTON — The capture of Mazar-i-Sharif by opposition forces can bring the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan a variety of tactical benefits, but the greatest gain could be intangible: a new sense that America's allies in this lengthening war will fight--and that they can score victories.
As U.S. forces have pounded Afghan targets for almost five weeks now, Pentagon officials have privately fretted that they did not have clear successes to show the world. They also worried that the fractious collection of tribal groups called the Northern Alliance might not be up to the task of a ground offensive.
If the capture of the strategic northern city proves to last--which is not certain--the campaign would at last have the kind of battlefield trophy likely to encourage coalition partners, dishearten the Taliban regime and give the allied military effort a momentum that could last the winter.
A victory in Mazar-i-Sharif "would be the first good news we've had," said Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council aide now at the Brookings Institution in Washington. It also "would quiet the greatest fear: that no matter what we did, nothing would happen on the ground."
The U.S. strategy so far has been built around the notion of a partnership. While U.S. forces pounded away from the sky, the anti-Taliban fighters were to punch through government defensive positions to capture the key northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul, the Afghan capital.
One aim of this strategy was to compel Taliban forces to amass in a way that would make them more vulnerable to strikes by U.S. planes.
U.S. military planners also hoped that if the Northern Alliance began winning ground, it would frighten off some Taliban fighters--many of whom are not strongly committed to the cause. And they hoped that this momentum would spark an even more important development: an uprising by ethnic Pushtun tribes in the Taliban's southern heartland.
Last month, the Northern Alliance's first run at Mazar-i-Sharif fell short, amid squabbling among rival military commanders. And Pentagon officials have worried that many of these fighters seemed unwilling to risk a major charge.
Yet the Pentagon has badly wanted a victory before the snows of winter halt most ground fighting for months.
