REMAINS OF THE DAY:
In Mazar-e-Sharif, the Northern Alliance was taken by surprise last week when over 1,000 Taliban prisoners revolted at the Qala Jangi fort. The prisoners had smuggled in arms and decided that death was better than captivity. It took a combination of US bombing and a ground battle spanning three days to bludgeon the captives into submission. In a single day, over 600 rebellious Taliban prisoners were felled-the highest number killed in a single battle in the war so far.

THE DOGS OF WAR:
It's not over even with death. A Northern Alliance soldier venomously jabs a dead Taliban soldier with his rifle barrel in the strategic city of Kunduz (below legt). It took a week of battling and intense negotiations to disarm the 15,000 Taliban soldiers, including foreigners mainly of Pakistani origin, before the city fell. Alliance soldiers then bundled hordes of Pakistani fighters captured in the Kunduz battle and took them in trucks to prisons decided by the local commanders (below right). The numbers captured exposed the nexus between Pakistan and the Taliban regime.