February 18, 2002

Taliban minister predicts revival of his movement

By Saeed Ali Achakzai

Monday February 18, 10:57 PM

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A senior member of Afghanistan's defeated Taliban derided the interim government on Monday for failing to stem rising

lawlessness and said the people would soon demand the return of his hardline movement.

Mullah Abdul Razzak, fugitive Taliban interior minister and a former key military commander in northern Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview that supreme

leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was still in Afghanistan but he did not know where.

Mullah Omar and Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States, are being hunted by U.S. forces in remote,

mountainous corners of Afghanistan. Razzak said he had no information about bin Laden.

Razzak, who spoke to Reuters in a house in the southern town of Spin Boldak, near the Pakistani border, said the U.N.-backed interim government led by Hamid

Karzai was incapable of keeping peace in the capital Kabul, let alone the rest of the country.

"We will soon resume our activities in Afghanistan because people will force us to do so because of the present situation," Razzak said.

"We maintained security throughout the country with the help of our 40,000 troops while the Karzai government has failed to maintain peace even in Kabul," he

added.

Razzak's once bushy beard, obligatory under harsh Taliban rule, was neatly trimmed -- an apparent necessity for a life on the run from U.S. and Afghan forces

hunting senior Taliban members.

Gone too was the trademark Taliban black turban.

Karzai's government is struggling to keep the lid on a host of tribal and ethnic disputes that have resurfaced since the defeat of the Taliban.

Power struggles between war lords have degenerated into bloody clashes in the north and east while in Kabul, the minister of air transport and tourism was

murdered last week, apparently by senior defence and security officials.

International security forces in Kabul came under attack for the first time on the weekend while aid agencies say lawlessness jeopardises efforts to help millions of

cold, hungry and sick Afghans.

"WAIT AND SEE"

Razzak said the Taliban, which collapsed in early December after a sustained assault by U.S. bombers and ground attacks by opposition fighters, were for now

biding their time, watching and waiting.

"We are currently not engaged in any activity," he said.

Razzak is an ethnic Pushtun who played a key role in maintaining the Taliban grip over mainly non-Pushtun regions in northern Afghanistan.

Razzak said reclusive, one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar left his stronghold of Kandahar just before the Taliban surrendered the southern city in early

December, and had disappeared.

"Mullah Omar had left Kandahar alone at the time of surrender and since then no one knows his whereabouts," he said.

An official in the new Kandahar administration said last week Mullah Omar was holed up in a remote mountainous region of nearby Uruzgan province.

"He is still in the same place. We believe he is in the northwestern part of Uruzgan," Engineer Mohammad Yusuf Pashtoon, a senior aide to Kandahar Governor Gul

Agha Sherzai, told reporters.

The most senior Taliban official in the hands of U.S. forces is former foreign minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil who gave himself up earlier this month.

Kandahar officials said earlier this month more than 15 senior Taliban officials were in secret talks on the possibility of surrendering to the authorities but Razzak said

he was not one of them.

Razzak pledged never to abandon his comrades, nor would he surrender.

"I will stand by the Taliban until the end," he said.

---

Five killed in northern Afghan clashes

Monday February 18, 7:23 PM

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Four Afghan fighters and an aid worker were killed in weekend clashes in northern Afghanistan between rival factions

within the shattered country's interim government, officials said on Monday.

General Gholam Sakhi, from an ethnic Hazara party, said he mediated to end fighting in and around Khulm, about 50 km (32 miles) east of the main northern town

of Mazar-i-Sharif.

But the fighting, in which about 30 people were wounded, cast fresh doubt on the ability of the new Afghan government to hold together its loose coalition of old

enemies and ensure security in the country.

Three dead fighters came from a faction led by northern warlord and deputy defence minister Abdul Rashid Dostum, Sakhi said.

An Afghan aid agency official said one of his Afghan workers and a commander from the other faction, which is loyal to Defence Minister Mohammad Fahim, had

also been killed.

It was the latest of several clashes in the north between commanders loyal to Dostum's party, the mainly ethnic Uzbek Junbish-i-Millie, and the mainly ethnic Tajik

Jamiat-i-Islami group loyal to Fahim led by Atta Mohammad.

The aid agency official, who witnessed the fighting, said the centre of Khulm was now quiet after outnumbered Junbish fighters were driven out, but clashes had

continued on Sunday around a village to the southeast.

He said the Afghan aid worker was killed on Saturday when the fighting erupted and a rocket was fired into a warehouse that was also used by Irish aid agency

GOAL.

Some 40 members of the factions have been killed in recent weeks, raising fears of full-scale conflict between the groups.

Sakhi said the fighting began after Atta persuaded several ethnic Tajik commanders and about 200 of their fighters to join his forces.

The fighting is the latest in a series of clashes, reflecting either a lack of control by top commanders or political jostling for influence in the north.

Both Dostum and Atta have pledged to work together in the national government.

But they have a long history of rivalry and large numbers of fighters that have yet to be demobilised or absorbed into a national army following the defeat of the

hardline former ruling Taliban.

Aid agency officials say security in the area has deteriorated recently despite the formation of a new police force and efforts to rid city centres of armed men.

---

Philippines fear flow of Taliban arms to Abu Sayyaf

Monday February 18, 3:05 PM

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippine military is concerned that large caches of firearms believed to be still held by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan

might be smuggled to local Muslim extremists linked to Osama bin Laden.

Brigadier-General Rodolfo Diaz, deputy chief of the southern military command based in Zamboanga city, and other officers expressed the concern in talks on

Monday with visiting U.S. congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nevada), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives armed services committee.

After the closed-door talks, Gibbons met U.S. troops taking part in a military exercise designed to upgrade the skills of Philippine soldiers fighting the Abu Sayyaf

guerrillas, whom the United States has linked to bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

The deployment of American soldiers on nearby Basilan island, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold, marks the most significant expansion of the United States' war on terror

after the destruction of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

"With the war in Afghanistan coming to a halt, there will be a possibility of a lot of these arms finding their way into other countries, including the Philippines,"

Philippine congressman Celso Lobregat quoted Diaz as telling Gibbons.

Diaz asked if the United States could restrict the flow of Taliban weapons out of Afghanistan and Gibbons promised to relay the concern to the U.S. government,

Lobregat, who took part in the talks, told reporters.

Lobregat said the Philippine military was concerned these weapons might be smuggled into the Philippines by the Abu Sayyaf.

Southern command military operations chief Colonel Roland Detabali said the Abu Sayyaf had been using the huge ransoms it had collected from kidnapping

operations to buy high-powered guns, radio equipment, cellular phones and speedboats.

Local officials estimate the Abu Sayyaf amassed $20 million from the kidnapping in 2000 of 21 mostly foreign hostages from a nearby Malaysian diving resort.

The guerrillas are currently holding a U.S. missionary couple, abducted almost nine months ago, on Basilan and have demanded $2 million for their release.

"The United States promised they would help us in monitoring and preventing (the arms from Afghanistan) from coming to the Philippines," Detabali said.

He said some of the weapons seized from captured Abu Sayyaf guerrillas came from former Warsaw Pact countries.

The U.S. military last weekend deployed the first batch of its elite special forces on Basilan prior to the start of the main phase of the exercise, which calls for the

American soldiers to join Filipinos in training patrols in combat zones.

More than 500 American soldiers have arrived in the Philippines for the planned six-month exercise, but only about 160 special forces will join the Basilan patrols.

About 30 special forces are now on Basilan and the rest are expected to fly into the country in two more batches this week.

---

Special Summary Of The War On Terrorism

Four Rockets Found Aimed At Karachi Airport Used By US

Monday February 18, 10:00 PM

Police found four rockets Monday aimed at part of Karachi International Airport used by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, officials said.

Waqar Mulan, an airport security official, said the Chinese-made rockets were equipped with homemade launchers and a timing device for automatic firing.

He said a passerby discovered the rockets and summoned police. The city's bomb squad defused them, Mulan added.

Top US Genl In Afghanistan To Help Build Natl Army

A U.S. general arrived in Afghanistan on Monday to meet with Afghan commanders and discuss the daunting task of building a national army in a country where

most fighters are loyal only to their tribal leaders or local warlords.

Maj. Gen. Charles Campbell, chief of staff of U.S. Central Command, is meeting with the head of the Afghan army, Asif Delawar, and the Afghan military's top

intelligence, training and logistics officers as part a mission to create a new training program for the Afghan army, a military representative at the U.S. Embassy said,

speaking on condition of anonymity. The mission is crucial if Afghanistan is to have a stable future.

US Envoy Meets Arab League Head,Discusses Anti-terror War

A U.S. envoy discussed the anti-terror campaign and regional issues Monday during a visit with the Arab League chief.

Ambassador Richard N. Haass, who heads the U.S. State Department's policy planning office, was named in October to oversee the U.S. role in consultations on

Afghanistan's future government.

Four Rockets Found Aimed At Karachi Airport Used By US

Police found four rockets Monday aimed at part of Karachi International Airport used by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, officials said.

Waqar Mulan, an airport security official, said the Chinese-made rockets were equipped with homemade launchers and a timing device for automatic firing.

He said a passerby discovered the rockets and summoned police. The city's bomb squad defused them, Mulan added.

WSJ Reporter Abduction Seen As Move Against Musharraf, US

The kidnapping of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl is widely seen as an attempt to strike a dramatic blow at Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for

getting tough on Islamic militants and siding with the U.S. in the war against terrorism.

Many Pakistanis, including security officials and political analysts, fear the Jan. 23 kidnapping may be followed by other moves by extremists seeking to undermine

Musharraf.

US Explores Expanding Military Ties In Asia

The U.S. rapidly is expanding military ties in Asia, where President George W. Bush is visiting three countries this week, as it fights terrorism and tries to promote

regional stability.

In the most visible example, about 600 U.S. troops over the weekend began advising Philippine troops fighting Muslim extremists on a southern island.

---

Afghan shooting row sparks inquiry

Monday, 18 February, 2002, 10:25 GMT (BBC)

Six paratroopers claim they fired in self-defence

British military and Afghan police are investigating claims that UK paratroopers shot dead an unarmed man taking his pregnant sister-in-law to a hospital in Kabul.

The family say they were unarmed when their car suddenly came under fire from the British troops early on Saturday morning, killing one and injuring four.

The soldiers identified the firing point and they returned fire

Isaf spokesman Graham Dunlop

But six British soldiers reported that they had returned fire after having been shot at as they manned an observation tower.

The British-led peacekeepers have so far been warmly welcomed in the Afghan capital, but BBC correspondent Michael Voss says this incident risks souring that

positive relationship.

Curfew

The family said they had defied a strict night time curfew (from 2130 local time) to take 21-year-old Faria Ishaq to hospital to give birth when they came under fire at

about 0120 local time.

They say her brother in-law Amaun, 20, was killed outright. Her husband, Mohammed Ishaq, 25, her mother-in-law and a neighbour, who was driving, were all

injured.

Mr Ishaq said the family fled home where his wife gave birth before a joint patrol of peacekeepers and Afghan police arrived at first light. The baby boy appeared to

be healthy, he said.

"We did not have any weapons of any kind," he said, adding: "We did not hear any gunfire until we ourselves were shot."

The patrol found a car riddled with gunshots near the family's house.

Captain Graham Dunlop, a spokesman for International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Kabul, said: "The soldiers identified the firing point and they returned

fire."

Captain Dunlop said the patrol had also found the dead man, a woman and baby and two other people in the house.

They were all taken to hospital for treatment for injuries and no weapons were found at the house, he said.

Removed from post

The paratroopers, from the 2nd Battalion, have since been removed from the Kabul observation post and a full investigation is under way, a Ministry of Defence

spokesman said.

British soldiers have been in Afghanistan since December, leading the 4,000-strong Isaf force.

Lieutenant Colonel Neal Peckham said it was the first incidence of Isaf troops coming under fire.

The incident comes at a time when Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, is pressing for an increase of the number of peacekeeping troops and to expand their

presence throughout the country.

---

Taliban Minister in Surrender Talks

Monday February 18 10:04 AM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban Interior Minister Abdul Razzak is one of more than 15 senior leaders of the hard-line militia negotiating a possible

surrender with the new Afghan government, a provincial official said on Monday.

``He is one of those people who are in touch with us, who want to surrender,'' Engineer Mohammad Yusuf Pashtoon, spokesman for the governor Kandahar

province, Gul Agha, told reporters.

Officials in the southern province told Reuters last week that more than 15 senior Taliban leaders still on the run were in talks about surrender. But officials have

declined to give details of the discussions or name the Taliban leaders involved.

But in an interview with Reuters in the southern Afghan town of Spin Boldak, near the Pakistani border earlier on Monday, Razzak said he was not one of the

Taliban officials considering surrender.

Razzak said he would never abandon his comrades, nor would he surrender.

``I will stand by the Taliban until the end,'' he said.

Razzak also derided the interim government for failing to stem rising lawlessness and said the people would soon demand the return of his movement because of the

poor security situation.

However, Pashtoon insisted the former interior minister had been discussing surrender.

Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil gave himself up earlier this month and is being questioned by U.S. forces in Kandahar.

Kandahar officials hope the surrender of more senior Taliban leaders would provide valuable intelligence on the whereabouts of Taliban supreme leader Mullah

Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden , chief suspect for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

THE MILITARY

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U.S. Team to Start Helping Afghans Build New Army

By THOM SHANKER

February 18, 2002

ASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — The United States will open a complicated and dangerous new military mission in Afghanistan on Monday when a two-star American

general arrives in Kabul to make good on President Bush's pledge to win the peace by helping to build a national army and end decades of warlord rule.

The officer, Maj. Gen. Charles C. Campbell, said his assessment team would spend substantial time in Afghanistan before presenting recommendations to Gen.

Tommy R. Franks, commander of the Central Command, which directed the war in Afghanistan. The team is drawn from the Pentagon and State Department and

includes a representative of Britain.

General Campbell is to hold talks with Hamid Karzai, the head of the interim government, the ministers of defense and interior and the army chief of staff about

training troops and an officer corps that will respect a central government. The government was shaken last week when the aviation minister was killed, apparently in

a plot by other government officials, according to Mr. Karzai.

Even as outrage sweeps through some Afghan villages over accounts of civilian deaths from American bombs, General Campbell and his team must also assess how

to pacify rival tribal factions armed by regional powers seeking influence, especially Iran.

"I have a full appreciation for the complexity of the landscape," the general said in an interview just before his departure for Afghanistan. "It will require quite a bit of

artfulness."

Scholars of Afghan military history say building a national army will require breaking down local militias in a land where two million fighters carry weapons. The

question is whether the militias must be disarmed and demobilized before they are reintegrated into society, or whether they must be integrated into the new military

in order to disarm the most undesirable factions.

International reluctance at taking on the burden of Afghanistan's long- term security was indicated by the scant attention given the issue at conferences in Berlin and

Tokyo debating Kabul's postwar government and economic development. While billions were pledged for civilian reconstruction, nothing was pledged to reconstruct

an army, State Department and Pentagon officials said.

"The $4.5 billion in aid does not have one penny for security," a senior Defense Department official complained after the Tokyo conference.

Mr. Bush welcomed Mr. Karzai to the White House on Jan. 28 and vowed "a lasting partnership" with his nation by rebuilding its military. But Mr. Bush ruled out a

direct combat role for American troops in a peacekeeping force. The British-led International Security Assistance Force, which is trying to keep the peace in Kabul

until the government can do so for itself, is to deploy 4,500 peacekeepers by the end of February.

General Campbell, chief of staff for the Central Command, said: "The president has indicated that we will assist in the establishment and training of an Afghan national

army. The Afghans have a view as to what that national army will look like in terms of structure, missions, size, ethnic composition."

The task, he said, will be a long one.

Speaking only in broad terms, he said an army of 50,000 or 60,000 troops "might be appropriate." He said it was premature to speculate whether military instruction

would be carried out by United States Army Special Forces, and whether Afghan commanders would be brought to the United States for advanced courses.

Ali A. Jalali, a former colonel in the Afghan Army and co-author of "The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahedeen Tactics in the Soviet- Afghan War," said,

"Building an Afghan army that would be nationally oriented, morally disciplined, ethnically balanced and professionally skillful is not something you can create in a

matter of weeks, months or even years."

In the last two decades of Soviet occupation and civil war, warlords and tribal leaders "tried to recruit anybody to build their power and further their personal

agenda, including thugs and criminals, and these personal armies are quite professional," said Mr. Jalali, who is now with Voice of America.

Mr. Jalali and other scholars of Afghan military history say the militias must be dissolved.

But that is hardly a simple task, and will quickly become a matter of finding work for men who, for a generation, had only their weapons to earn a living.

With sufficient international economic aid, some fighters could be paid to join military work crews, clearing minefields or rebuilding factories, roads and sanitation

services. Others could be paid to work on state-run farms.

"They could be paid to trade their Kalashnikovs for spades and shovels," Mr. Jalali said.

Buying the loyalty of factional commanders and warlords will be exceedingly more difficult, and can happen only when those regional leaders have to turn to a central

government for money.

"The Karzai government has no money, so it can't pay anyone's salary," said Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies at the New York University Center on

International Cooperation. "This is a basic issue that colors everything. You cannot build an army or get people to change their loyalties away from the warlords

unless you pay their salaries."

The warlords, he said, operate as "quasi-governmental authorities that do not answer to the national government and support themselves largely by taxing or looting

or, depending on how organized they are, by trade."

Those factional leaders will fear disarming without guarantees that they will be secure from attack by rivals, Mr. Rubin said.

"You have to give them incentives, show they can play new roles," he said. "They can become businessmen, hopefully legitimate businessmen. Or they can become

politicians. After the Karzai government builds up its forces, then, gradually, these incentives can give way to pressure, and subtle military threats."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said any eventual American security assistance need not go for weapons.

"If there's one thing that Afghanistan is not short of, it's equipment," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "They've got an ample supply of weapons and all the things that armies and

those types of things need. I don't think that's the big issue. I think it's organization and training."

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U.S. Backing Helps Warlord Solidify Power

By Susan B. Glasser

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, February 18, 2002; Page A01

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Hazrat Ali sat cross-legged on the floor late one night, engrossed in political intrigue over three constantly ringing U.S.-issued satellite

phones. The U.S.-backed warlord of Jalalabad is restless these days, and he is never without bright blue beads he fingers obsessively.

When a call came from Afghanistan's interior minister, Yonus Qanooni, Ali took the offensive. A rival of Ali's was in Kabul, lobbying for the job of regional defense

chief. Under no circumstances, Ali told Qanooni. "I don't need him in Jalalabad," he said. "I am not happy with him in Jalalabad. He has to leave Jalalabad."

A minute later, it was Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim on the line. He had sent weapons to Ali to fight al Qaeda in the Tora Bora mountains, and was pleading

for their return. Ali rebuffed him. "Security is still a concern here," he said. "Give me some time, and I will get these weapons back from my commanders, and I will

send them back."

Such bullying comes easily to Ali, who as America's local warlord is the only power that really matters in Jalalabad. Supported by U.S. military might and dollars, Ali

represents a potent new force in post-Taliban Afghanistan, challenging a weak central government that has no choice but to do business with him.

Ali owes his rise largely to the Pentagon, which enlisted him to lead the ground battle against Osama bin Laden's fighters in nearby Tora Bora last fall. Today, his

fighters are a constant shadow to the U.S. Special Forces based in Jalalabad. He commands a fleet of plush new Land Cruisers, apparently bought with U.S.

money. Ali's rivals say his gunmen routinely warn anyone who disagrees with them that they have the power to call down B-52 airstrikes from the Americans.

"The Americans have contacts only with me," Ali said. "They're always with me."

In hours of conversation over two days, Ali claimed to command 18,000 fighters, which would make his the biggest force in eastern Afghanistan. He boasted of his

ability to commandeer U.S. helicopters for his own use, and freely acknowledged a variety of intrigues that a more polished politician might hesitate to admit.

Physically imposing, with a tight, curly beard and gentle eyes, Ali comes across as a mix of warrior and schemer. He shows little interest in rebuilding his war-torn

domain, and describes no real agenda beyond consolidating his power. That mission appears to square with the war aims of his U.S. patrons. "The Americans want

to spend all their money on al Qaeda and getting Osama bin Laden," Ali said.

While boasting of the influence his American access gives him, Ali also talks knowingly about the failings of the warlord system. "The Afghan nation," he said, "is

facing big trouble" because of the every-commander-for-himself ethic.

Here in Jalalabad, a chaotic but still graceful trading city close to Pakistan, Ali's rise has come at the expense of two more politically experienced men, veteran

guerrilla leader Mohammed Zaman Ghun Shareef and regional governor Abdul Qadir. At least for now, Ali, from the minority-dominated Northern Alliance and a

member of the small Pashai tribe, has trumped these two ethnic Pashtun rivals in the center of Afghanistan's Pashtun belt.

"There is only one way to rule Afghanistan now: Follow whatever the Northern Alliance is saying, follow whatever the Americans are saying. That's why Hazrat Ali is

getting the benefit," said Jehangir Khan, an adviser to Zaman. "The Pashtuns are getting divided because of the money and influence that are coming from the

Americans."

Roots in an Isolated Village

There is a word that inevitably comes up in Jalalabad to describe Ali and his fellow Pashai. Shurrhi is a Pashtun insult that translates roughly as "ignorant mountain

man." Referring to Ali, it is invariably linked to the idea that he has brought the primitive code of the mountains to the more civilized city on the plains. More than one

person said that for Ali and his fighters, Jalalabad is like New York City.

Growing up in the isolated mountain village of Kushmoon, "we played with stones, with trees," said Ali's top deputy, Musa, who is Ali's cousin as well as his

brother-in-law. "We didn't even think to come down to the city."

A fighter since he was a teenager, Ali has known war against the Soviets, the Taliban and his rival commanders. His father was a farmer who grew "wheat, corn --

no poppies," he said. A brother died fighting the Soviets. Ali became a small-time commander during the Soviet war, first kicking the Soviets out of his village and

later becoming leader of the fractious Pashai. He says he is 38.

Ali has three wives, all living in the Iranian city of Meshed, three sons and nine daughters. One son died; he doesn't say how. Another, 16, is studying in London. The

third, 22-year-old Samiullah, is with him in Jalalabad, a quiet part of his father's entourage, dressed in Western clothes. Before Iran, his family lived in exile in Dubai;

before that, in Pakistan. They haven't seen much of their father.

Virtually uneducated, Ali said he knows the alphabet and basic math. Even writing his satellite phone number is a painstaking process. But he speaks several

languages: his native Pashai; Pashto, the local lingua franca; Dari, the dialect of Persian that is prevalent in Afghanistan's north; and Urdu, the language of Pakistan.

He is also testing out some English learned from his new American friends.

He has quickly picked up some accoutrements of the warlord high life, like the fleet of six gleaming new Toyota Land Cruisers for his personal use. Even there,

however, the transition from guerrilla to foot soldier is incomplete.

Take his favorite Land Cruiser, a luxury model with a computer console that offers satellite TV and a Global Positioning System receiver in addition to the CD player

and radio. Ali, who loves this car so much he insists that the plastic covers be kept on the creamy tan leather seats, can't operate the console, and neither can his

driver. They bought the car in Dubai without checking out the computer, which is programmed in Japanese.

Even so, the SUV is one of the only visible perks of his new power. Unlike his more worldly rival, Zaman, who holds court in a beautiful Jalalabad garden,

surrounded by orange trees and speaking fluent French and English, Ali is most comfortable flanked by the pickup trucks of gunmen who accompany him

everywhere. The house where he stays in Jalalabad has the feel of a soldiers' barracks, which it is.

Northern Alliance, Not Pashtun

Ali was up north, in the Panjshir Valley, mourning the death of the Northern Alliance's charismatic leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, when a new war in Afghanistan

became inevitable on Sept. 11. All around Jalalabad, Ali has made his allegiance to the Northern Alliance an inescapable political fact, hanging posters of Massoud

on his military command posts and his men's pickup trucks. He keeps a picture of Massoud's son on the dashboard of his Land Cruiser.

A few weeks after Sept. 11, he said, the Americans came to him in the Northern Alliance's Panjshir headquarters, planning the military campaign against the Taliban.

While Jalalabad's other would-be leaders plotted their return from exile, Ali had never left the country, fighting inside Afghanistan throughout the Taliban's five-year

rule.

Asked why Ali won the favor of the Americans over Jalalabad's two other major figures, a Western diplomat who has followed the relationship closely cited Ali's

twin credentials: He is Northern Alliance, and he is not Pashtun. "Our side decided he might be more reliable," the diplomat said. "While people like Zaman were

sitting in Dijon, Ali was in the country fighting -- a fairly effective military guy."

But the Americans, at least back then, hedged their bets. Ali received money and satellite phones, but so did Zaman, according to several sources. It's not clear how

much either received. Ali is less known than other warlords who have seized control of large parts of Afghanistan, such as Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum in Mazar-e

Sharif or Ismail Khan in Herat. Before the Taliban's collapse, it was far from guaranteed that Ali would emerge as Jalalabad's leading figure.

When the Taliban fled Jalalabad on Nov. 14, Ali's men were the first ones here, and by all accounts they went on a days-long looting spree. But as Ali started taking

charge of the city, Qadir and Zaman at least temporarily teamed up, rushing back to Jalalabad on Nov. 16 to ensure that Ali did not gain unchallenged control.

All three leaders aspired to rule. "I should be governor," Ali told reporters in November. "I liberated the town." Instead, he was appointed regional security chief, the

post he held before the Taliban took over. Zaman was nominally in charge of the military as regional corps commander. Qadir returned to the governorship.

But Ali always had more power in the way that counted: He had thousands of fighters at his command. When the Americans pushed the Afghans into mounting an

assault on al Qaeda forces at Tora Bora, it was Ali who took charge.

Today, Ali's men are installed in key positions in the city. A top lieutenant is the police chief. Another runs the beleaguered telephone exchange, which neither

receives calls from elsewhere in the country nor can send them out of Afghanistan. His commanders control the airport, the military headquarters and the city

checkpoints. Like Ali, many are Pashai outsiders, and are loyal to him.

Asked how many fighters are under his command, he demurred at first. "If I tell you, you will think it is an exaggeration," he said. Later, he said, "I have 18,000

soldiers with guns," spread throughout several provinces of eastern Afghanistan. Six thousand of his soldiers are in Jalalabad and surrounding Nangahar province, he

said. "I am giving to all these money and food and everything."

Faulting Rival on Tora Bora

Ali's main project these days is not military, but political -- securing the permanent ouster of his rival Zaman.

In the eight weeks since the end of his inconclusive campaign in Tora Bora, Ali has used his clout to blame Zaman for the apparent escape of bin Laden and his

fighters.

He also accuses Zaman of "playing a double game," receiving support from Pakistan as well as from the British special forces who are headquartered at Zaman's

house in Jalalabad. "Because of that, the Kabul government doesn't have trust in him," Ali said.

In mid-January, Ali appeared to win when the Kabul government ousted Zaman from his post as corps commander. "We told the Americans, so they kicked Zaman

out, they took his job from him," said Musa, Ali's deputy. Now, Ali is lobbying the Kabul government to give Zaman a different job, anywhere but here.

But Zaman has been fighting back. In a meeting with Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, and defense chief Fahim, he was offered the post of head of

security for Karzai, commanding a force of 6,000 soldiers. He refused. "He told Karzai and Fahim angrily, 'I don't want to quit Nangahar,' " said an aide who was

present.

Qadir, too, has become bitter at Ali's ascendancy, according to advisers. "Everybody knows Hazrat Ali isn't a military professional, he isn't a real leader," said

Buryali, Qadir's brother, who uses a single name. "But he has influence, he has people, he has money. He is supported by the Northern Alliance and the Americans."

To Buryali, Ali's power is a bad sign of the long-term effects of the U.S.-led war. "The Americans have created this warlord," he said. "And unfortunately, the

structure of warlordism in Afghanistan will last as long as power depends on how many guns you have."

A Sermon on Change

Ali's convoy arrived one recent afternoon in neighboring Laghman province, on a mission to make peace between rival factions.

Aware of his limitations as a negotiator, Ali asked the silver-tongued mayor of Jalalabad, Engineer Ghafar, to speak first. He offered a sermon on the evils of

warlordism.

"In Europe and the world everywhere, they are talking about the warlord culture in our country," the mayor said, "where everything is for money, for bad things. So

now we have to make clear to the mind of the West that we will change these things. It's your duty to unite all these warlords and commanders. We have to join

ourselves together, and that's the reason for our visit."

No one seemed to sense any irony.

Later, in a meeting in the barren concrete building that serves as the governor's house, Ali offered a homily that described his own evolving sense of what it means to

be a warlord in a country where war is over, but peace is not yet established.

"Don't go for war because you know war is disaster," he lectured. "Holding an official job means being like the servant of the people -- so now you have to behave

like that."

Outside, his heavily armed retinue waited. He had told the guards to watch especially carefully over his beloved Land Cruiser. "I don't trust these people," he had

said. "They are all thieves."