The Taliban launched an offensive against Northern Alliance positions north of Kabul.
February 29; 2000; A bomb exploded outside a government building in Kabul. There were no injuries.
February 28; 2000; The Northern Alliance reported that they have killed three Taliban commanders north of Kabul. The Taliban had attacked a Northern Alliance position outside the city. The Taliban is said to be planning another major offensive against the Northern Alliance. The previous one, last August, gained much ground initially, but was eventually thrown back to where they started.
February 25; 2000; The UN continues to try and arrange peace talks between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. The two warring groups have been talking informally, but not in any systematic fashion that is likely to lead to long term peace.
February 22; 2000; The UN has managed to get food supplies for refugees, through Taliban lines and into Northern Alliance territory. The UN has to supply even more aid to Taliban controlled refugees to obtain Taliban permission to more aid into enemy territory.
February 18; 2000; Two Northern Alliance commanders, and some 400 armed followers, have defected to the Taliban.
February 17; 2000; Thousands of Taliban troops have been seen massing north of Kabul, apparently in preparation for a new offensive against the Northern Alliance.
February 14; 2000; Passengers from an Afghan airliner hijacked to Britain on February 6 returned to Afghanistan. Only 73 of the 194 passengers and crew chose to return. The rest asked for asylum in Britain.
February 11; 2000; A former president of Chechnya, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, has entered Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Russians accuse him of seeking support for Chechen rebels.
February 10; 2000; Hijackers of an Afghan airliner surrendered themselves and the aircraft in Britain.
February 8; 2000; A UN envoy is to meet with the leaders of the Northern Alliance, to try and arrange peace talks.
February 7; 2000; The Taliban refuses to negotiate with the hijackers of an Afghan airliner, who are now holding the aircraft in Britain (where it arrived today from Moscow). The Northern Alliance denies any involvement in the hijacking.
February 6; 2000; The hijackers of an Afghan airliner have demanded the release of a prominent opposition leader, Turman Ismail, who has been held since 1996. Ismail denies any involvement with the hijacking. He was formerly the governor of Kandahar province. The plane is now in Moscow. The aircraft was seized earlier in the day shortly after it left Kabul airport. It landed in Kazakhstan and shortly thereafter left for Moscow.
January 29; 2000; The Northern Alliance admitted that they have lost ground in the northern province of Sari Pul. The Northern Alliance said the Taliban had brought in a brigade of 1,500 volunteers from Pakistan to help them. Some 20,000 refugees have fled the fighting in the middle of the Winter. The total casualties have been some two dozen dead and injured.
January 27; 2000; The Taliban have seized the key Darra Gosfandee pass in the northern Sari Pul province. The Taliban have replaced the unpopular governor of Khost province, responding to increasing public complaints against hard line Taliban administrators.
January 23; 2000; The Chechen rebels have opened their first, and only, embassy in Kabul. Only Afghanistan recognizes the rebels of Chechnya as an independent nation. Few nations recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.
January 22; 2000; Some 13 fighters have been killed in the north in two days fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.
January 18; 2000; The Taliban insists that, although they recognize the Chechen rebels as the legitimate government of Chechnya, the Taliban has sent no military aid to Chechnya.
January 17; 2000; International phone service has been restored.
January 16; 2000; The Taliban has announced that it will recognize the Chechen rebels as the legitimate government of Chechnya and calls on all Moslem nations to do the same.
January 12; 2000; The assassination of a Northern Alliance commander (Najmuddin Khan) has led to the arrest of some 200 people. The killers are said to be Wahhabis, a fundamentalist Moslem group operating in the area.
January 10; 2000; A Northern Alliance commander, Agha Sherin Salangi, has taken fifty of his men and gone over to the Taliban. Salangi has long been at odds with the Northern Alliance leadership.
January 5; 2000; Sources in the Kashmiri independence movement say the India Airlines hijackers are still in Afghanistan. Although the Taliban denies this, it is a possibility in a country where there are many groups who pursue their own agenda with little fear of interference from central authority.
January 1; 2000; The India Airlines aircraft, hijacked to Afghanistan on December 25th, was flown back to India after being checked for booby traps, sabotage or explosives.
