Northern Alliance
9
7.0
- proper noun
:
Alianza del Norte
- The threat of providing covert assistance to the Northern Alliance might be a useful short-term strategy to pressure the Taliban, if it is handled delicately, but any real military alliance to Masoud's successors will backfire.
- the Northern Alliance and the Taliban
Examples
-
After 9/11, a U.S.-led international coalition joined forces with the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban.
Academic text (2012) -
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, with technologically advanced special operations units, air power, and the support of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, was a demonstration of what Rumsfeld imagined as the future of warfare.
Academic text (2010) -
The standoff between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance would continue until the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
Academic text (2010) -
The governments of Iran, Russia, and India supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which held on to northeastern Afghanistan.
Academic text (2012) -
Because the Taliban, at this point, controlled all of Afghanistan's border posts with Pakistan, this left the Northern Alliance further isolated.
Academic text (2010) -
However, much of the corruption in Afghanistan derives from patronage networks that were entrenched as a result of U.S. collusion with the Northern Alliance in 2001-2002.
Academic text (2012) -
The Revolutionary Guards, the most ideological group in the Iranian armed forces, rubbed shoulders with U.S. forces when they assisted the Northern Alliance in overthrowing the Taliban in 2001.
Academic text (2009) -
Iran has tried to project itself as a responsible regional actor since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, urging the Afghan Northern Alliance to accept the Bonn agreement for the formation of a new broad-based government in Kabul and offering aid, loans, and training for Afghan soldiers.
Academic text (2009) -
The Taliban was dominated by Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan (42 percent of the population) and the second largest in Pakistan, while the Northern Alliance was dominated by Tajiks (27 percent), Uzbeks (9 percent), and various smaller minorities.
Academic text (2012) -
After 9/11, a U.S.-led international coalition joined forces with the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The headword is compositionally built from 'northern' + 'alliance', so a B1 learner who knows both words would reasonably infer it denotes an alliance located in the north. However, the specific historical/political details (multiethnic military-political coalition, location in Afghanistan, opposition to the Taliban) are encyclopedic and cannot be derived from the constituents, making the expression only partially predictable.
Etymology
Northern Alliance comes from groups in the north of Afghanistan who joined together 'to fight the Taliban'. The word Northern shows where they came from and Alliance means people who work together, so the name means people from the north who joined to fight the Taliban.