Some 25,000 Pushtuns in northern Afghanistan, who fled to the Pakistan when the Taliban fell, are refusing to return home. They fear persecution by non-Pushtun Northern Alliance militias that control northern Afghanistan. The Taliban brought many of these Pushtuns north after they took territory from the Northern Alliance in 1999 and 2000. Locals were killed or driven off and their land and villages given to Pushtuns.

Calls for foreign nations to provide more peacekeepers continue to be ignored. No one wants to send their soldiers into what is still considered a volatile and violent situation. The feeling seems to be that Afghans will have to work out peace deals themselves.