Alliance ‘as bad as Taliban’ on women’s rights

Her face hid from view, Tahmeena Faryal told the United Nations that in the eyes of Afghan women, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance ‘‘have outdone each other’’ in committing massacres and violating women’s rights.

She warned that if the alliance, whose forces have swept through most of Afghanistan in a rout of the Taliban, remained in power the country would plunge into another civil war that would provide fertile ground for ‘‘wealthy Arab and non-Arab terrorist bands’’.