World News 14-11-2001 Music Fills Streets Of Afghan Capital who: Afghan freedom fighters Northern Alliance what: Execute Taliban fighters as capital city is occupied where: Afghanistan when: Yesterday snippet: "An outburst of joy and widespread looting greeted the collapse of Taliban power in Kabul," reports The Telegraph, "and large tracts of Afghanistan yesterday after American-backed Northern Alliance fighters ended the most restrictive religious regime in modern history." The liberation of Kabul is accompanied by pockets of bloody vengeance. In The Sun, Nick Parker describes how a gang of 15 Northern Alliance soldiers exacted a grim revenge on a captured Taliban fighter. "He begged for mercy, his eyes ablaze with terror and blood pouring from a wound in his groin," writes Parker in an article accompanied by photos by Tyler Hicks. "But he was given no quarter. In a final act of humiliation, his blood-soaked trousers were pulled down to his ankles. Then he was shot dead by at least three soldiers brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles. Some of his executioners laughed as they opened up." "Across Afghanistan, they are celebrating," says The Independent`s Justin Huggler. "The men are queuing at the barbers to have their Taliban regulation-length beards shaved off. Music, banned by the Taliban, is blaring out again, and trashy Indian pop tunes fill the streets." But Westerners should not expect a sudden change in Afghan women`s rights, he warns. "The women are still invisible. Despite the Northern Alliance forces sweeping the country, none of the women were tearing off their veils." In The Times, Simon Jenkins describes the Taliban as "completely flaky" and admonishes George W Bush for implying that the principles of Western civilisation were ever vulnerable to Osama bin Laden`s acts of terrorism. But in The Mirror, former KGB Colonel Vladimir Ivanov says that controlling the capital city is "next to useless" and recalls "When our troops went into Kabul at Christmas in 1979, it look less than an hour to grab the presidential palace. We then spent the next 10 years seeking in vain to control the country." [... more]

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