In retrospect, that battle at Qala-i-Jangi offered Americans an early glimpse of the complexity, contradictions, and shifting allegiances of Afghanistan.

Things went wrong almost immediately. Once inside Qala-i-Jangi, the Taliban soldiers were asked to turn out their pockets. A prisoner, waiting until Alliance commander Nadir Ali was near, suddenly ...

Questions are being asked about whether the bloody end to this week’s prison siege at the 19th-century Qala-i-Jangi, outside Mazar-i-Sharif, will provide the defining moment of the Afghan war.