The Pashtuns say they fled persecution in their home villages, at the hands of Tajiks. The Tajiks say their homes have been raided by Pashtun fighters. In an Afghanistan struggling to build a cohesive nation after 23 years of war, ethnic tensions have supposedly been submerged in the name of national unity. But recent fighting here in western Afghanistan shows that those tensions remain like spider cracks in china, and run all the way to the nation’s capital, Kabul. The fighting pitted a Pashtun commander, Amanullah Khan, who has long maintained a base near here, against the Tajik governor of Herat Province, Ismail Khan. Their animosity is bitterly personal, but it has also taken on an ethnic cast.Full Story