Even by Afghanistan's standards of often-shifting alliances, a recent meeting between ethnic Hazara elders and local commanders of the Taliban insurgents who have persecuted them for years was extraordinary.
The Hazaras — a largely Shiite minority killed in their thousands during the Taliban's hard-line Sunni Islamist rule of the 1990s — came to their old enemies seeking protection against what they deem an even greater threat: masked men operating in the area calling themselves "Daesh," a term for the Islamic State group in the region.
In a sign of changing times, the Taliban commanders agreed to help, said Abdul Khaliq Yaqubi, one of the elders at the meeting held in the eastern province of Ghazni.