Second,the Northern Alliance rebels' seizure of Kabul merely resets the clock back to1992, when as the mujahadin they took the city from Najibullah's Communists. Notonly did the non-Pashtun mujahadin execute Pashtuns, and legislate the firstlimits on women's rights, but they quickly turned on each other. Their fouryears of in-fighting left 50,000 dead, and led Afghans and the West to welcomethe Taliban as stabilizing "liberators" in 1996. Since then, NorthernAlliance rebels have had a reputation as corrupt "looters andrapists," according to a recent statement by the Revolutionary Associationof Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and have taken control of up to 80 percent ofAfghanistan's opium trade. The returning Northern Alliance rebels are againexecuting Pashtuns in the city, much as returning Albanians attacked Serbs inKosovo two years ago. But the Northern Alliance seizure of Kabul gives it acentral role in any new Afghan "coalition" government, becausepossession is nine-tenths of the law.