By January 1996, Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, shares Iran's and Russia's view of the Taliban movement as a form of aggression by Pakistan.

Abdul Rashid Dostum, commander of the former Afghanistan government militia (renamed Junbish), now controls the northern region centered on Mazar-e Sharif.

Massoud, along with other mujahedin commanders in the north, has provided refuge to the Tajik Islamist guerillas in Tajikistan's civil war.

A recipient of support from the Karimov government and from Russia, Dostum maintains operational neutrality between Ahmed Massoud, who is allied to a different side in the Tajikistan conflict, and the Taliban, as long as neither side attacks his area.

(Source: WRITENET Country Papers Afghanistan: The Forgotten Crisis (February 1996)