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Tribal Leader Fends Off Taliban
Thursday, November 01, 2001
By Marc Kaufman / Washington Post Service

A prominent Afghan tribal leader has begun the first known armed uprising against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan since the U.S.-led air strike campaign began, fighting off a Taliban attack Thursday and claiming to control part of a southern province.

Hamid Karzai, an influential chief of the leading Pashtun tribe, said he survived a Taliban attack on a meeting of tribal elders he convened in Uruzgan province, and that his men captured 12 Taliban troops.

Karzai, who's close to Afghanistan's exiled former king Mohammed Zahir Shah, returned to Afghanistan last month to promote a national gathering aimed at forming a broad coalition government to replace the ruling Taliban.
(More: The Miami Herald News Source)
2001 © Washington Post Service.

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