The end of Taliban?

The Taliban regime may be crumbling, but there are few indications that a broad-based government will emerge, reports Absar Alam from Islamabad
After the sudden withdrawal on Tuesday of Taliban forces from the Afghan capital, Kabul, there were signs yesterday of a breakdown in their control over more Afghan cities, including Kandahar, birthplace of the hardline Islamist movement.
Reports from the Pakistan-Afghan border suggest up to 5,000 armed Pashtuns were moving against the Taliban near Kandahar. The Taliban are also Pashtun, the ethnic group that makes up nearly 50 per cent of the country's population.
US officials were quoted as saying the Taliban were in disarray in several areas in the south. Field commanders were fleeing and some were switching sides, officials added.
However, experts on Afghanistan cautioned that pulling out from major cities to regroup and launch new attacks has been a common tactic among warring Afghan factions since the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989. Military experts fear the possibility that the Taliban are abandoning the cities to fight a guerrilla war from the mountains.
There were no signs yesterday that the United States was any closer to capturing Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden.
The fall of Kabul set off alarm bells in neighbouring Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led anti-Taliban campaign. Pakistan has long had hostile relations with the Northern Alliance (NA), which moved thousands of its forces into Kabul hours after Taliban's sudden pull out.
Although thousands of Kabul residents came out in the streets on Tuesday to cheer NA forces, there were fears about reprisals in Afghan cities abandoned by the Taliban. Kabul residents celebrated the end of the strict Taliban rule by breaking taboos imposed over the past five years. Many residents shaved their beards while others played music from their tape recorders.
The Red Cross said the bodies of six Arab nationals and five Pakistanis were collected from different parts of the city. The Pakistanis had climbed into trees and were firing when NA forces killed them in a hail of bullets.
Four Arabs died when their pickup truck was blasted by a US-made rocket. Their charred bodies were dragged from the vehicle. Two other Arabs were killed outside a military base near the United Nations guesthouse. Their bodies were covered with blankets and old clothes and thrown into the street.
In Geneva the Red Cross said its workers in Mazar-i-Sharif were burying victims of the violence "by the hundreds." Mazar's fall into NA hands last Friday marked the beginning of the Taliban retreat. The NA has shown particular hostility towards Arabs and Pakistanis who supported the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
Shortly after returning from a tour of Europe and the United States, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf called for the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force made up of soldiers from Muslim nations to Afghanistan. He said Pakistan and Turkey could contribute.
The UN envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, called for a meeting as soon as possible between the NA and other factions to agree on a framework for the transition to a new government.
A key worry for those involved in the US-led campaign is that the fall of Kabul came before any political arrangements could be cobbled together among the country's tribes.
Meanwhile, thousands of British soldiers were put on a 48-hour standby yesterday for possible deployment in Afghanistan as the vanguard of any international peacekeeping force.
British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said that British forces "are ready to help in Afghanistan should they be needed." But they would not get involved in chasing down Taliban forces now on the run, he added
Brahimi ruled out a UN peacekeeping force, arguing it would take several months to get the necessary troop commitments. He said his first preference would be an all-Afghan security force, but added that a multinational security force could probably be assembled more quickly.
Fears that the NA would seek to strengthen its control over Kabul in a bid to reinforce its position in any post-Taliban government deepened after deposed Afghan President and NA leader Burhanuddin Rabbani announced that he was returning to Kabul. Rabbani was to due to arrive in the capital yesterday to pronounce himself the head of territories now under the control of the anti-Taliban opposition.
With the leader of the mainly Uzbek forces, General Abdul-Rasheed Dustom, announcing his support for Rabbani as the head of an Afghan government, General Fahim as defence minister, Abdullah Abdullah as foreign minister and Younus Qanooni as interior minister, the power struggle between the Afghan warlords and former King Zahir Shah and his supporters seems set to begin another unstable phase in Afghanistan's ill-fated history, experts on Afghanistan fear.
In Cairo, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said yesterday that Egypt supports UN efforts aimed at reaching an understanding between Afghanistan's warring factions.
"We support the efforts made by the UN special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, to reach an understanding among the warring Afghan parties and lay down the bases of a new political regime," he said.
"The Afghan people themselves must choose their government, it must not be imposed by anyone," Maher added.
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