Kabul, Afghanistan - At times in 2008 Afghanistan eclipsed Iraq in levels of violence, and international attention is returning to the country for the first time since 2001. With the Obama administration planning a massive troop increase, Afghanistan and Pakistan look to be at the center of the administration’s foreign policy for 2009.

What is at stake?

In 2008, violence reached record levels across the country – there were 50 percent more insurgent attacks in the first seven months of 2008 than in the same period in 2007, according to Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), a Kabul-based aid organization. Insurgents are “conservatively estimated to be active in over 35 percent of the country,” says Nic Lee of the Afghan NGO Safety Office, a Kabul-based nongovernmental organization. The Taliban and its allied movements effectively control large parts to the Pashtun-dominated south and east, including many districts close to Kabul. Nearly as many international troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year as in Iraq, despite the fact that almost twice as many soldiers are deployed in Iraq.

“I won’t say that things are all on the right track, especially in the south and east,” David McKiernan, the top commander in the country, told reporters earlier this year. “So the idea that it might get worse before it gets better is certainly a possibility.”

The international community can’t afford to fail in Afghanistan, says Haroun Mir of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies. An international defeat would deliver a crucial blow to Western strategic interests – Washington would lose a foothold in a region where rival powers such as Iran wield growing influence, and its ability to strike at Islamic extremists such as Al Qaeda would be greatly diminished.

A defeat would also be a major setback for US coalition partner NATO, which has deployed outside Europe for the first time.

However, experts say that an outright military defeat is unlikely in 2009 or beyond. The international forces are too strong in numbers, funding, and technology to be defeated by Taliban guerrillas, says Habibullah Rafeh, a policy analyst with the Kabul-based Afghanistan Academy of Sciences. Instead, he says the real danger is the West remaining bogged down in a protracted military conflict that could last decades and cost billions.

Can the US turn things around?

The incoming Obama administration pledges to focus more attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which critics say were overshadowed by Iraq in recent years. As many as 20,000 additional troops may head to Afghanistan this year. Many of these troops will be deployed in provinces close to Kabul, which currently do not have a significant international presence and are largely under insurgent control.

Military officials say that the additional troops are needed to build a permanent presence in villages and towns. “It doesn’t help when [we] go into villages, hand out soccer balls, kill a few insurgents, and then go away,” says an officer with NATO forces, who requested anonymity when speaking about military strategy. Instead, he says troops need to hold the territory they have gained and initiate reconstruction projects so that the local population can see the benefits of their presence.

However, many observers say that the additional troops may not be enough to secure the country. The surge will at best bring the total force strength to nearly 90,000, which is still far short of the US presence in Iraq or the Soviet presence during the 1980s. In addition, although there has been a large troop increase over the past two years, violence has increased over the same period.

In December, Western officials announced a plan to arm tribes against the insurgents, recalling a strategy in Iraq that helped weaken Al Qaeda there. The move is highly controversial in Afghanistan, which has a history of civil war and clashing militias.

A more popular strategy among officials is negotiating with the insurgents to end the fighting. The first steps toward reconciliation were made in 2008 when the Afghan government approached former Taliban figures in hopes of sparking a dialogue with current insurgent leaders. Such meetings are expected to continue in 2009, and Washington has publicly backed talks with all but the most senior Taliban leaders.

Washington is also backing Kabul’s efforts to reconcile with lower-ranking insurgents. “You talk to … people who may have fought for local reasons, [such as] tribal reasons,” says Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs. “There are a number of programs under way [that will] eat away at the support base for the Taliban.”

What is Pakistan’s role?

Western officials accuse some elements of the Pakistani military of supporting militants based on Pakistani soil who cross into Afghanistan and launch attacks. This has long been a source of tension between the two countries, but in recent years some militants allied with Al Qaeda have also launched a war against Pakistan. The result is that Islamabad follows a duel policy of cracking down on militants arrayed against the Pakistani state – which includes Al Qaeda – but covertly tolerating militants who restrict their fighting to Afghanistan, critics say.

Despite this, Washington and Islamabad’s shared war against Al Qaeda has brought the two closer together. American officials say increased pressure from their side as well as the rise of a civilian government in Islamabad have brought cooperation to an all-time high. The Pakistani and American militaries are now undertaking joint military operations along the Afghan-Pakistani border, for example.

However, if violence continues to worsen in 2009 and Pakistan is not seen to crack down on the Afghan insurgents, tensions between the two countries could rise again. In addition, US officials expect to continue the policy of airstrikes in Pakistani territory, which Pakistanis oppose. Finally, tensions between India and Pakistan could distract Islamabad from its fight against militants and hurt its relations with the West.

What’s ahead for the Afghan government?

Presidential elections are scheduled for the fall and could prove pivotal. Analyst Mr. Rafeh says that poor security conditions in many parts of the country may preclude elections and deal a major blow to Washington, which views elections as a benchmark of success.

The government is under fire from all sides for being corrupt and ineffective, and Hamid Karzai’s popularity has plunged as a result. Nonetheless, a lack of strong alternatives might give him an easy victory if elections do occur, albeit with a low voter turnout.

Eroding support for the central government and the poor security environment risk undermining the gains made in the post-Taliban era, which include the country’s first democratically elected government, and advances in the spread of education and healthcare.

What is NATO’s future in the country?

The 41 NATO countries involved in Afghanistan – who make up roughly 55,000 of the 70,000 troops in the country – have differing rules of operation. Some refuse to deploy to combat-intensive zones and others have already set withdrawal dates. “The international forces can’t fight the Taliban if they don’t have a unified command and outlook,” says Rafeh.

On the battlefield, some consolidation is already taking place. US and NATO forces now answer to a single commander, for example. For 2009, the international forces plan to put command of the volatile southern region permanently under the Americans, instead of the current arrangement of rotating leadership between NATO countries. Officials say this will make the military effort more streamlined and effective.

On the political level, observers expect progress to be slower. Many countries have to deal with their own internal politics, says Rafeh. It might be politically risky for Germany to send troops to the violent south when the majority of its population is antiwar.

The danger in this, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned nearly a year ago, is in NATO becoming “a two-tiered alliance of those willing to fight and those who are not.”

Kabul, Afghanistan - Evidence of fraud and poor security conditions are raising concerns that next fall’s presidential elections could be compromised.

With Afghans scheduled to go to the polls in less than a year, the country’s Independent Elections Commission (IEC) is in the midst of a massive voter registration drive that will continue until early February. Election officials are watching registration numbers closely because low registration could delay or derail the presidential polls.

The IEC is reporting high turnouts across the country since the drive began in October, despite insurgent threats to kill anyone who registers. Many parts of the south and east are under insurgent control.

But evidence is emerging that the registration numbers are inflated by illegal practices, such as registration of lists of “phantom voters” and those under legal voting age. Lawmakers and an elections watchdog allege that such violations are widespread and could undermine the vote’s fairness.

The allegations come at a time when the incoming Obama administration has pledged to increase America’s focus on Afghanistan. In addition to sending in thousands of additional troops in 2009, officials cite strengthening the fledgling democracy and building strong governance as key policy goals in the coming years.

A questionable or fraudulent election could weaken the Afghan government and its allies as well as strengthen the Taliban’s hand. “This would undermine the legitimacy of whoever is elected president next year,” says Habibullah Rafeh, policy analyst with the Afghan Academy of Sciences.

Allegations of fraud are backed by evidence of irregularities in various provinces. In northern Baghlan Province, for instance, some students below the legal voting age claim that election officials issued them registration cards. “A lot of us took cards, even though we were underage,” says area resident Habibullah Sherzai. Another resident, Kabiri, says, “I know many youths who got registration cards. Some of my friends even have two cards.”

In southeastern Paktia Province, election officials claim that almost twice as many women have registered than men – despite extreme conservativism that largely prevents women from venturing outside. Some residents in the provincial capital, Gardez, claim that, in certain cases, one person registered on behalf of others, a violation.

“In Naswan High School, some people took bribes from the provincial council to register lists of women voters,” says Mahera Ahmadzai, who heads Paktia’s Women’s Shura. She alleges that some of the women on these lists do not exist. Other Gardez residents claim that men are registering on behalf of multiple women and that underage girls are registering. Such registrations could be used by one individual to cast multiple votes.

IEC Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Zekra Barakzai says his organization has received similar reports from Paktia and elsewhere. “We are taking these incidents very seriously, and we are sending people to investigate,” he says.

According to the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, an Afghan-based NGO that observed the process, multiple registrations of a single person were seen in at least 40 percent of all centers during the most recently completed phase of the drive. In one case, investigators found that some 500 registration cards were issued to one person in Badghis Province.

Investigators also found men staffing female registration centers and election officials who were members of political parties.

Poor security also obstructs the process. According to interviews with local tribal elders and provincial officials, insurgents effectively control six of Wardak’s eight districts. “There are districts that I am 100 percent sure no government worker can go to,” says Roshanak Wardak, a member of parliament from Wardak Province. “But you are telling me that still so many people registered? I don’t believe it.”

The IEC claims that of the province’s 90 registration centers, 82 remained open during registration. But residents say that in the Pashtun districts, many centers never opened. “I went to staff the registration office just once,” says one election worker from the Syed Abad district of Wardak, who declined to be named for security reasons. “The rest of the time I stayed in my village, which is controlled by the Taliban.”

“The people … didn’t even come out of their houses, let alone register,” says Alam Gul, chief of the Shura Council. Mr. Gul says the district of 100,000 people is largely under Taliban control.

Provincial officials say that election teams rarely, if ever, ventured outside district capitals. “Nobody came to our village. Almost no one has new registration cards,” says a member of the Shura Council of Chakh district.

As a result, the two Hezara-dominated districts of Wardak comprise the bulk of new voters. The IEC does not release registration numbers on a district-by-district or ethnicity basis, but IEC spokesman Mr. Barakzai says that “the registration numbers in Pashtun districts are very low.”

Although some people who didn’t register this year may still hold valid registration cards from the previous presidential election, the factors that kept Pashtuns from registering could keep those who have cards from voting. If the results of Wardak and elsewhere are reproduced in Pashtun regions, there could be an ethnic imbalance, says Mr. Rafeh, the policy analyst.

Security concerns also threaten the elections. “If this [security] situation continues, elections will be postponed or canceled,” Rafeh says. Insurgents have kidnapped or killed a number of election workers in recent months. In some areas, they have posted threats to anyone who registers to vote.

According to the Constitution, elections must take place in the spring of 2009. But IEC officials have tentatively scheduled polls for the fall. “If … security … doesn’t allow elections, a state of emergency can be declared and the elections can be postponed even further,” adds Mr. Barakzai.

“This is not the type of election we want,” Roshanak Wardak, a member of parliament, says. “If you can’t guarantee our security, don’t expect us to come out and vote.”

Kabul, Afghanistan - The Afghan government and its allies are reconciling with moderates and isolating hard-liners in a bid to split the insurgency, Western and Afghan officials say.

The idea of wooing moderates has gained traction as violence in Afghanistan has reached record levels this year. The United States and NATO are reassessing their strategy amid a growing chorus of Western officials who say that the international effort here is failing.

“Some ministries have started a program to try to separate Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” says Ursala Rahmani, a former Taliban official who has been involved in talks with the government. Mr. Rahmani says that the Interior and Defense ministries are involved in the effort.

“We are trying to exploit the natural tensions that exist between Al Qaeda and those under Mullah Omar,” the fugitive leader of the Taliban, adds a senior intelligence officer with the international forces, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Some insurgent commanders may be closely aligned with Al Qaeda, which is waging an international, ideologically driven war against the West.

But Afghanistan experts say that most Afghan insurgents fight because of local grievances, including tribal rivalries, poor economic opportunities, and dissatisfaction with the Afghan government and international forces. Many experts say these insurgents have little interest in attacking sites in the West and restrict their concerns to Afghanistan.

Western officials dub these fighters “moderates,” even though many of them are just as religiously conservative as their Al Qaeda counterparts.

“Over the long term, I see reconciliation as one of the primary actions that will have to occur for there to be success,” says Carter Malkasian, who directs the Stability and Development program at CNA, a Washington-based think tank.

Two-pronged strategy

Such reconciliation is a key ingredient in the kind of counterinsugency strategy militaries have used for decades, including in Iraq. The strategy may take two approaches. First, it will focus on the low-ranking insurgent fighters who may be easier to reconcile with the government.

“We tend to talk about the Taliban, but there is ‘big T’ Taliban, that is Mullah Omar and the [others] who … swept through the country in the mid-’90s,” says Eric Edelman, the Pentagon’s senior policy official, told reporters in Washington recently. “There is what I call the ’small-T’ Taliban, which are Pashtun tribals who are not reconciled to the government and may be engaging in … activity kind of opportunistically.”

According to officials at the Afghan Social Outreach Program, part of an Afghan government initiative to strengthen local governance, a new body is being formed to reconcile such fighters with the government that will use the promise of government jobs and cash inducements. This body will replace an already existing government organization that many say is corrupt and ineffective.

The second approach will be to zsow divisions in the insurgency’s leadership and isolate elements close to Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have differing strategies: Al Qaeda’s policy of global warfare has brought it into confrontation with the Pakistani government, while the Afghan Taliban are on good terms with Islamabad and restrict its fight to Afghanistan.

“Al Qaeda’s activities draw Pakistani military action, and this leads to natural tensions between them and the [Afghan] Taliban,” says the senior intelligence officer with the international forces.

There is evidence that such tensions have existed for some months. In February, Mullah Omar issued a statement saying, “We want to have legitimate relations with all countries in the world,” and expressing solidarity with Iran, a Shiite country viewed by the Sunni-extremist Al Qaeda as an enemy. The statement also indicated that the Taliban’s main purpose was to fight within Afghan borders.

In response, prominent Al Qaeda websites posted messages denouncing the “nationalist trend” and pro-Iranian orientation in the Taliban’s communiqués.

Psychological operations

The effort to widen such possible divisions may include so-called psychological operations. According to intelligence officers, international forces and the Afghan government plant fake e-mails on jihadi websites or circulate bogus letters in the insurgent community.

For instance, a few months ago, there appeared a letter signed by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who heads an insurgent network that is independent of Mullah Omar’s Taliban and very closely aligned with Al Qaeda. The letter denounced Mr. Omar as “ineffective, ignorant, and illiterate” and appealed to insurgents to follow Mr. Haqqani. Intelligence agents with the international forces suggest that the letter originated from the Afghan government or its allies as an attempt to inflame tensions between insurgent groups.

Some insurgent commanders might be more amenable to negotiations than others. The US government is also backing talks between Afghan officials and former Taliban figures. A first set of meetings was held in the fall in Mecca, under the auspices of the Saudi king. Although many attending the meeting were low-ranking former Taliban officials or people who have fallen out of favor with the current insurgent leadership, observers say that Kabul may be hoping to use these talks as a starting point for future direct negotiations with senior leadership.

Some who attended the Mecca meetings say that future meetings are being planned in places like Dubai, and both sides are looking into meeting regularly in the coming months.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who heads an insurgent network allied with the Taliban, may not be fighting for purely nationalist or other ideological reasons.

“Hekmatyar’s main concern is power, and he will do whatever it takes to get it back,” says Waliullah Rahmani of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies, an independent think tank. Mr. Hekmatyar was one of the few warlords not offered a position in the post-Taliban government.

In the spring, Hekmatyar sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, stating, “I have dedicated my whole life to struggle, but I am old.” The letter goes on to imply that Mr. Karzai should remove all foreign troops from urban centers. A similar message was sent in October.

According to Waheed Muzhda, a former Taliban official who has seen one of the letters and is familiar with the negotiation process, Hekmatyar may be interested in a senior government post.

Splitting the insurgency, however, may prove difficult. “Many of the Taliban’s financial resources come from Al Qaeda,” says analyst Mr. Rahmani. The Taliban may also lack sufficient incentive to split from Al Qaeda or negotiate with the Afghan government as long as they feel they are winning the war and their havens in Pakistan are not threatened.

“Omar and his followers have nothing to lose and everything to gain if they can hold out long enough for foreign forces to withdraw,” says Matthew DuPee, a researcher with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

But if the US can weaken the insurgency, it could force splits in insurgents’ ranks. “If you achieve a measure of military success, then you are in a position to negotiate with the warlords,” says Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The US must also offer incentives, such as more autonomy on the local level and more resources, he adds.

“If your end game is negotiated settlement, then you need both sticks and carrots,” he says.

• Gordon Lubold contributed from Washington.

If there is an exact location marking the West’s failures in Afghanistan, it is the modest police checkpoint that sits on the main highway 20 minutes south of Kabul. The post signals the edge of the capital, a city of spectacular tension, blast walls, and standstill traffic. Beyond this point, Kabul’s gritty, low-slung buildings and narrow streets give way to a vast plain of serene farmland hemmed in by sandy mountains. In this valley in Logar province, the American-backed government of Afghanistan no longer exists.

Instead of government officials, men in muddied black turbans with assault rifles slung over their shoulders patrol the highway, checking for thieves and “spies.” The charred carcass of a tanker, meant to deliver fuel to international forces further south, sits belly up on the roadside.

The police say they don’t dare enter these districts, especially at night when the guerrillas rule the roads. In some parts of the country’s south and east, these insurgents have even set up their own government, which they call the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the name of the former Taliban government). They mete out justice in makeshift Sharia courts. They settle land disputes between villagers. They dictate the curricula in schools.

Just three years ago, the central government still controlled the provinces near Kabul. But years of mismanagement, rampant criminality, and mounting civilian casualties have led to a spectacular resurgence of the Taliban and other related groups. Today, the Islamic Emirate enjoys de facto control in large parts of the country’s south and east. According to ACBAR, an umbrella organization representing more than 100 aid agencies, insurgent attacks have increased by 50% over the past year. Foreign soldiers are now dying at a higher rate here than in Iraq.

The New Nationalist Taliban

The burgeoning disaster is prompting the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai and international players to speak openly of negotiations with sections of the insurgency.

But who exactly are the Afghan insurgents? Every suicide attack and kidnapping is usually attributed to “the Taliban.” In reality, however, the insurgency is far from monolithic. There are the shadowy, kohl-eyed mullahs and head-bobbing religious students, of course, but there are also erudite university students, poor, illiterate farmers, and veteran anti-Soviet commanders. The movement is a mélange of nationalists, Islamists, and bandits that fall uneasily into three or four main factions. The factions themselves are made up of competing commanders with differing ideologies and strategies, who nonetheless agree on one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners.

It wasn’t always this way. When U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited regime. “We felt like dancing in the streets,” one Kabuli told me. As U.S.-backed forces marched into Kabul, the Afghan capital, remnants of the old Taliban regime split into three groups. The first, including many Kabul-based bureaucrats and functionaries, simply surrendered to the Americans; some even joined the Karzai government. The second, comprised of the movement’s senior leadership, including its leader Mullah Omar, fled across the border into Pakistan, where they remain to this day. The third and largest group — foot soldiers, local commanders, and provincial officials — quietly melted into the landscape, returning to their farms and villages to wait and see which way the wind blew.

Meanwhile, the country was being carved up by warlords and criminals. On the brand-new highway connecting Kabul to Kandahar and Herat, built with millions of Washington’s dollars, well-organized groups of bandits would regularly terrorize travelers. “[Once], thirty, maybe fifty criminals, some in police uniforms, stopped our bus and shot [out] our windows,” Muhammadullah, the owner of a bus company that regularly uses the route, told me. “They searched our vehicle and stole everything from everyone.” Criminal syndicates, often with government connections, organized kidnapping sprees in urban centers like the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar city. Often, those few who were caught would simply be released after the right palms were greased.

Onto this landscape of violence and criminality rode the Taliban again, promising law and order. The exiled leadership, based in Quetta, Pakistan, began reactivating its networks of fighters who had blended into the country’s villages. They resurrected relationships with Pashtun tribes. (The insurgents, historically a predominantly Pashtun movement, still have very little influence among other Afghan minority ethnic groups like the Tajiks and Hezaras.) With funds from wealthy Arab donors and training from the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence apparatus, they were able to bring weapons and expertise into Pashtun villages.

In one village after another, they drove out the remaining minority of government sympathizers through intimidation and assassination. Then they won over the majority with promises of security and efficiency. The guerrillas implemented a harsh version of Sharia law, cutting off the hands of thieves and shooting adulterers. They were brutal, but they were also incorruptible. Justice no longer went to the highest bidder. “There’s no crime any more, unlike before,” said Abdul Halim, who lives in a district under Taliban control.

The insurgents conscripted fighters from the villages they operated in, often paying them $200 a month — more than double the typical police salary. They adjudicated disputes between tribes and between landowners. They protected poppy fields from the eradication attempts of the central government and foreign armies — a move that won them the support of poor farmers whose only stable income came from poppy cultivation. Areas under insurgent control were consigned to having neither reconstruction nor social services, but for rural villagers who had seen much foreign intervention and little economic progress under the Karzai government, this was hardly new.

At the same time, the Taliban’s ideology began to undergo a transformation. “We are fighting to free our country from foreign domination,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told me over the phone. “The Indians fought for their independence against the British. Even the Americans once waged an insurgency to free their own country.” This emerging nationalistic streak appealed to Pashtun villagers growing weary of the American and NATO presence.

The insurgents are also fighting to install a version of Sharia law in the country. Nonetheless, the famously puritanical guerrillas have moderated some of their most extreme doctrines, at least in principle. Last year, for instance, Mullah Omar issued an edict declaring music and parties — banned in the Taliban’s previous incarnation — permissible. Some Taliban commanders have even started accepting the idea of girls’ education. Certain hard-line leaders like the one-legged Mullah Daddullah, a man of legendary brutality (whose beheading binges at times reportedly proved too much even for Mullah Omar) were killed by international forces.

Meanwhile, a more pragmatic leadership started taking the reins. U.S. intelligence officers believe that day-to-day leadership of the movement is now actually in the hands of the politically savvy Mullah Brehadar, while Mullah Omar retains a largely figurehead position. Brehadar may be behind the push to moderate the movement’s message in order to win greater support.

Even at the local level, some provincial Taliban officials are tempering older-style Taliban policies in order to win local hearts and minds. Three months ago in a district in Ghazni province, for instance, the insurgents ordered all schools closed. When tribal elders appealed to the Taliban’s ruling religious council in the area, the religious judges reversed the decision and reopened the schools.

However, not all field commanders follow the injunctions against banning music and parties. In many Taliban-controlled districts such amusements are still outlawed, which points to the movement’s decentralized nature. Local commanders often set their own policies and initiate attacks without direct orders from the Taliban leadership.

The result is a slippery movement that morphs from district to district. In some Taliban-controlled districts of Ghazni province, an Afghan caught working for a non-governmental organization (NGO) would meet certain death. In parts of neighboring Wardak province, however, where the insurgents are said to be more educated and understand the need for development, local NGOs can function with the guerrillas’ permission.

The “Other” Talibans

Never short of guns and guerrillas, Afghanistan has proven fertile ground for a whole host of insurgent groups in addition to the Taliban.

Naqibullah, a university student with a sparse beard who spoke in soft, measured tones, was not quite 30 when we met. We were in the backseat of a parked dusty Corolla on a pockmarked road near Kabul University, where he studied medicine. Naqibullah (his nom de guerre) and his friends at the university are members of Hizb-i-Islami, an insurgent group led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allied to the Taliban. His circle of friends meet regularly in the university’s dorm rooms, discussing politics and watching DVD videos of recent attacks.

Over the past year, his circle has shrunk: Sadiq was arrested while attempting a suicide bombing. Wasim was killed when he tried to assemble a bomb at home. Fouad killed himself in a successful suicide attack on a U.S. base. “The Americans have their B-52s,” Naqibullah explained. “Suicide attacks are our versions of B-52s.” Like his friends, Naqibullah, too, had considered the possibility of becoming a “B-52.” “But it would kill too many civilians,” he told me. Besides, he had plans to use his education. He said, “I want to teach the uneducated Taliban.”

For years Hizb-i-Islami fighters have had a reputation for being more educated and worldly than their Taliban counterparts, who are often illiterate farmers. Their leader, Hekmatyar, studied engineering at Kabul University in the 1970s, where he made a name of a sort for himself by hurling acid in the faces of unveiled women.

He established Hizb-i-Islami to counter growing Soviet influence in the country and, in the 1980s, his organization became one of the most extreme fundamentalist parties as well as the leading group fighting the Soviet occupation. Ruthless, powerful, and anti-communist, Hekmatyar proved a capable ally for Washington, which funneled millions of dollars and tons of weapons through the Pakistani ISI to his forces.

After the Soviet withdrawal, Hekmatyar and the other mujahedeen commanders turned their guns on each other, unleashing a devastating civil war from which Kabul, in particular, has yet to recover. One-legged Afghans, crippled by Hekmatyar’s rockets, still roam the city’s streets. However, he was unable to capture the capital and his Pakistani backers eventually abandoned him for a new, even more extreme Islamist force rising in the south: the Taliban.

Most Hizb-i-Islami commanders defected to the Taliban and Hekmatyar fled in disgrace to Iran, losing much of his support in the process. He remained in such low standing that he was among the few warlords not offered a place in the U.S.-backed government that formed after 2001.

This, after a fashion, was his good luck. When that government faltered, he found himself thrust back into the role of insurgent leader, where, playing on local frustrations in Pashtun communities just as the Taliban has, he slowly resurrected Hizb-i-Islami.

Today, the group is one of the fastest growing insurgent outfits in the country, according to Antonio Giustozzi, Afghan insurgency expert at the London School of Economics. Hizb-i-Islami maintains a strong presence in the provinces near Kabul and Pashtun pockets in the country’s north and northeast. It assisted in a complex assassination attempt on President Karzai last spring and was behind a high-profile ambush that killed ten NATO soldiers this summer. Its guerrillas fight under the Taliban banner, although independently and with a separate command structure. Like the Taliban, its leaders see their task as restoring Afghan sovereignty as well as establishing an Islamic state in Afghanistan. Naqibullah explained, “The U.S. installed a puppet regime here. It was an affront to Islam, an injustice that all Afghans should rise up against.”

The independent Islamic state that Hizb-i-Islami is fighting for would undoubtedly have Hekmatyar, not Mullah Omar, in command. But as during the anti-Soviet jihad, the settling of scores is largely being left to the future.

The Pakistani Nexus

Blowback abounds in Afghanistan. Erstwhile CIA hand Jalaluddin Haqqani heads yet a third insurgent network, this one based in Afghanistan’s eastern border regions. During the anti-Soviet war, the U.S. gave Haqqani, now considered by many to be Washington’s most redoubtable foe, millions of dollars, anti-aircraft missiles, and even tanks. Officials in Washington were so enamored with him that former congressman Charlie Wilson once called him “goodness personified.”

Haqqani was an early advocate of the “Afghan Arabs,” who, in the 1980s, flocked to Pakistan to join the jihad against the Soviet Union. He ran training camps for them and later developed close ties to al-Qaeda, which developed out of Afghan-Arab networks towards the end of the anti-Soviet war. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. tried desperately to bring him over to its side. However, Haqqani claimed that he couldn’t countenance a foreign presence on Afghan soil and once again took up arms, aided by his longtime benefactors in Pakistan’s ISI. He is said to have introduced suicide bombing to Afghanistan, a tactic unheard of there before 2001. Western intelligence officials pin the blame for most of the spectacular attacks in recent memory — a massive car bomb that ripped apart the Indian embassy in July, for example — on the Haqqani network, not the Taliban.

The Haqqanis command the lion’s share of foreign fighters operating in the country and tend to be even more extreme than their Taliban counterparts. Unlike most of the Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami, elements of the Haqqani network work closely with al-Qaeda. The network’s leadership is most likely based in Waziristan, in the Pakistani tribal areas, where it enjoys ISI protection.

Pakistan extends support to the Haqqanis on the understanding that the network will keep its holy war within Afghanistan’s borders. Such agreements are necessary because, in recent years, Pakistan’s longstanding policy of aiding Islamic militant groups has plunged the country into a devastating war within its own borders.

As Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants trickled into Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, Islamabad signed on to the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror. It was a profitable venture: Washington delivered billions of dollars in aid and advanced weaponry to Pakistan’s military government, all the while looking the other way as dictator Pervez Musharraf increased his vise-like grip on the country. In return, Islamabad targeted al-Qaeda militants, every few months parading a captured “high-ranking” leader before the news cameras, while leaving the Taliban leadership on its territory untouched.

While the Pakistani military establishment never completely eradicated al-Qaeda — doing so might have stanched the flow of aid — it kept up just enough pressure so that the Arab militants declared war on the government. By 2004, the Pakistani army had entered the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous region populated by Pashtun tribes (where al-Qaeda fighters had taken refuge), in force for the first time in an attempt to root out the foreign militants.

Over the next few years, repeated Pakistani army incursions, along with a growing number of U.S. missile strikes (which sometimes killed civilians), enraged the local tribal populations. Small, tribal-based groups calling themselves “the Taliban” began to emerge; by 2007, there were at least 27 such groups active in the Pakistani borderlands. The guerrillas soon won control of areas in such tribal districts as North and South Waziristan, and began to act like a version of the 1990s Taliban redux: they banned music, beat liquor store owners, and prevented girls from attending school. While remaining independent of the Afghan Taliban, they also wholeheartedly supported them.

By the end of 2007, the various Pakistani Taliban groups had merged into a single outfit, the Tehrik-i-Taliban, under the command of an enigmatic 30-something guerrilla — Baitullah Mehsud. Pakistani authorities blame Mehsud’s group, usually referred to simply as the “Pakistani Taliban,” for a string of major attacks, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Mehsud and his allies have strong links to al-Qaeda and continue to wage an on-again, off-again war against the Pakistani military. At the same time, some members of the Pakistani Taliban have filtered across the border to join their Afghan counterparts in the fight against the Americans.

Tehrik-i-Taliban proved surprisingly powerful, regularly routing Pakistani army units whose foot soldiers were loathe to fight their fellow countrymen. But almost as soon as Tehrik had emerged, fissures appeared. Not all Pakistani Taliban commanders were convinced of the efficacy of fighting a two-front war. Part of the movement, calling itself the “Local Taliban,” adopted a different strategy, avoiding battles with the Pakistani military. In addition, a significant number of other Pakistani militant groups — including many trained by the ISI to fight in Indian Kashmir — now operate in the Pakistani borderlands, where they abstain from fighting the Pakistani government and focus their fire on the Americans in, or American supply lines into, Afghanistan.

The result of all this is a twisted skein of alliances and ceasefires in which Pakistan is fighting a war against al-Qaeda and one section of the Pakistani Taliban, while leaving another section, as well as other independent militant groups, free to go about their business. That business includes crossing the border into Afghanistan, where the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, and independent fighters from the tribal regions and elsewhere add to the mix that has produced what one Western intelligence official terms a “rainbow coalition” arrayed against U.S. troops.

Living in a World of War

Despite such foreign connections, the Afghan rebellion remains mostly a homegrown affair. Foreign fighters — especially al-Qaeda — have little ideological influence on most of the insurgency, and most Afghans keep their distance from such outsiders. “Sometimes groups of foreigners speaking different languages walk past,” Ghazni resident Fazel Wali recalls. “We never talk to them and they don’t talk to us.”

Al-Qaeda’s vision of global jihad doesn’t resonate in the rugged highlands and windswept deserts of southern Afghanistan. Instead, the major concern throughout much of the country is intensely local: personal safety.

In a world of endless war, with a predatory government, roving bandits, and Hellfire missiles, support goes to those who can bring security. In recent months, one of the most dangerous activities in Afghanistan has also been one of its most celebratory: the large, festive wedding parties that Afghans love so much. U.S. forces bombed such a party in July, killing 47. Then, in November, warplanes hit another wedding party, killing around 40. A couple of weeks later they hit an engagement party, killing three.

“We are starting to think that we shouldn’t go out in large numbers or have public weddings,” Abdullah Wali told me. Wali lives in a district of Ghazni Province where the insurgents have outlawed music and dance at such wedding parties. It’s an austere life, but that doesn’t stop Wali from wanting them back in power. Bland weddings, it seems, are better than no weddings at all.

by Mark Sappenfield and Anand Gopal

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Hajji Habib Lal is a successful businessman in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, importing fine ceramic plates from Germany and France. He also owns an AK-47 assault rifle.

Mr. Lal’s son has already been kidnapped once – returned after 13 days for a $20,000 ransom. But Lal still gets death threats by phone, and a few days ago, thieves tried to break into his house. Only a few randomly fired shots from the AK-47 stopped them.

For the Afghans whose hearts and minds America and its allies are trying to win, the greatest enemy in many cases is not the Taliban, but criminals and the police who are often seen as being complicitous with them.

Even in areas where the government holds sway, law and order is rapidly deteriorating, stoking the frustrations that feed Afghanistan’s insurgency.

“Our perception of security priorities is different from that of the vast majority of Afghans,” says Andrew Wilder, author of “Cops or Robbers?” a 2007 report on police reform for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent think tank in Kabul.

The steady decline in law and order – particularly murders and kidnappings – has accelerated this year. In the prosperous western trading hub of Herat, rising crime has led investors to pull out of the area. Some 150 of the province’s 250 factories have closed, according to the Union of Herat, a traders association. The province’s parliamentary delegation has threatened to resign if the government does address the situation.

In Kabul, a Christian aid worker and two businessmen have been shot in recent weeks. Kidnappings have also become commonplace, with a prominent banker, a relative of the former king, and two foreign workers – including a Canadian journalist – abducted over the past few months. The journalist, Mellissa Fung, was freed after four weeks. But many businessmen are fleeing.

Hafizullah Sherzay might soon be among them. The construction-company owner has lived through the worst of Afghanistan’s recent history. Neither a civil war nor the Taliban’s austere regime compelled him to leave.

Yet after seeing many friends and colleagues kidnapped in recent months, he says he is seriously considering moving to Dubai. “If this security situation persists, it will be impossible to stay,” he says.

Earlier this year, criminals abducted the nephew of Mr. Sherzay’s business partner. The family paid a $400,000 ransom and left the country.

About 60 businessmen are kidnapped per year, mostly by organized criminal syndicates that demand huge ransoms, according to the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce. With many businesses wary of entering such an environment, private investment in the country dropped almost by half from 2006 to 2007, estimates the Afghan Investment Support Agency, based in Kabul.

“Businessmen are coming to us and complaining about security,” says Salaam Qazizada, one of the ministers of parliament from Herat who has threatened to quit. “Everyone who has the money to do so is leaving the country.”

The government is trying to address his concerns. Last month, the Ministry of Interior sent a commission to Herat to investigate the lawlessness and announced the creation of an antikidnapping police unit.

But many lawmakers and experts worry that the police are a significant part of the problem. Some members of parliament have accused police officials of releasing convicted criminals for bribes. In evidence of this, security officials revealed that gang members only recently released from prison kidnapped a wealthy former presidential candidate last month.

Corruption in the Afghan police force is “pervasive,” a 2008 RAND Corp. study found, based on interviews with US and NATO officials involved in police training from 2004 to this year.

The Afghan government headed by President Hamid Karzai has been unwilling to take strong action against corruption in the Ministry of Interior, which governs the police, say Mr. Wilder and others. This has been compounded by a lack of oversight from the international community, which has focused on counterinsurgency.

“Local law and order were their concerns, not ours,” says Wilder.

There are signs that this is changing. In 2007, the US earmarked $2.5 billion for the police, more than it did from 2002 to 2006 combined. Moreover, mounting pressure on Mr. Karzai forced him to replace his Interior Minister last month – a move hailed by the UN’s top envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, as helping strengthen the Afghan police.

For his part, businessman Lal in Kandahar says there is much work to be done. “This [current government] is a government of thieves,” he says. “During the Taliban rule we never had these sorts of problems…. I’m not defending the Taliban movement, but we have to accept the truth that there were never any problems for civilians and businessmen.”

He went to the police for help, but he says they did nothing. Instead, he says he traveled to Herat himself to uncover the criminal syndicate that abducted his son. “I showed the thieves to the [intelligence agency], who arrested them,” he says.

He could leave for Dubai, but feels bound to stay and protect all his family. “If I leave and abandon my sisters, my parents, and my land it will be a big shame for me,” he says.

So he goes with his children every day to school and picks them up afterward. If his family goes shopping, he joins them.

“I don’t have any enemies, only criminals that try to harass me,” he adds. “But everyone in Afghanistan has this problem, so why should I leave?”

Violence has reached record levels this year and Afghanistan is now considered a deadlier battlefield than Iraq. Insurgents are able to operate openly in areas close to the capital and the central government’s popularity is at the lowest point in its history. The situation is prompting a number of strategy reviews in Washington as the U.S. prepares for possible strategic shifts after the next president takes office.

Some officials are quietly considering a plan to arm tribal groups, in a move reminiscent to the American strategy in Iraq that is credited with decreasing violence there. “We are seriously looking into using tribes and local communities to provide security,” says an American intelligence officer with the international forces.

“It will not work in the same way as Anbar” — the province in Iraq where the U.S. first tried the strategy of arming tribal militias — “but instead will be part of a general community-based approach,” he says. He adds that this will include an effort to strengthen local governance as well as entrusting tribes to manage the security in their areas.

The idea is winning support in some sections of the Afghan government. A senatorial commission recently announced that it is developing a proposal for the increased role of arbakais, traditional Pashtun tribal self-defense forces, under government command.

Many say, however, that the plan is fraught with difficulties and dangers.The plan may only be effective in parts of the country, such as the southeastern provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika that border Pakistan. In these areas, where the tribal structure remains strong and the influence of the central government is weak, local tribes have already established small arbakais on their own. However, in other parts of the country, such as Kandahar and Helmand, war, Taliban influence and opium cultivation have eroded tribal independence. “My information, from studying Afghan history, is that arbakai works only in Paktia, Khost and the southern portion of Paktika, and it’s not likely to work beyond those geographic locations,” Gen. Dan McNeil, head of the NATO forces in the country, told reporters earlier this year.

A bigger concern is the arming of non-government entities in a country rife with warlords and with a violent history of armed militias. Habibullah Rafeh, political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of the Sciences, says that such military solutions may not bring peace as they rely on the distribution of more weapons.

Ramazan Amon, pushcart vendor in Kabul, remembers the last time militias and warlords roamed Afghanistan freely. “They fired rockets at my home, destroying it,” he says, referring to battles during the country’s civil war in the mid-nineties.

“Many of my neighbours were killed,” he continues. “Our family had to flee our home. I don’t want more weapons and militias — it will only cause more fighting.”

While the U.S. mulls such options, policy makers in Washington and sections of the Afghan government are also considering negotiations with the Taliban. Last month, Kabul invited former Taliban figures to Saudi Arabia to explore future peace talks with the insurgency. Although the talks cannot be construed as peace negotiations since the former Taliban members were not representatives of the insurgency, some Afghan and Western officials hope that this will be the start of a negotiated settlement between the warring factions.

The prospect of Taliban figures entering the government has some women’s groups and moderates worried of a return to fundamentalist rule. “If the Taliban returns we will revert back to feudalism,” says Sheila Samimi, manager of the Afghan Women’s Network, a local NGO.

However, most Afghans say that a negotiated settlement with the insurgency may be the country’s only chance for peace. “We are against Barack Obama’s policy of sending more troops,” says Fatana Gailani of the Afghanistan Women’s Council, another local NGO. “We want reconciliation with the Taliban through a loya jirga,” or grand tribal assembly.

“If talks with the Taliban can bring peace, I’ll support it,” says Shaferazeen, a painter who lost his leg to a rocket attack during the warlord civil war of the nineties.

Current policy in Washington is opposed to negotiations with the most senior leadership of the insurgency, whom they have blacklisted.

The Afghan government, on the other hand, has said that it is willing to negotiate with all insurgents, including Mullah Omar. “Those Afghans that are blacklisted must be removed,” says Bakhtar Aminzai, Afghan senator and a leading advocate of negotiations.

While some insurgent leaders, such as guerrilla commander Jalahuddin Haqqani, enjoy a close relationship with al Qaeda, other sections, such as Mullah Omar’s circle, may be more independent. The American intelligence official with the international forces says that there are tensions between al Qaeda and Mullah Omar’s circle, and other analysts say that the U.S. is looking to exploit these differences and isolate al Qaeda. However, others contend that a split between al Qaeda and the Taliban is not likely. The Taliban is still not completely ideologically and financially independent from al Qaeda, says Waliullah Rahmani of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies.

Mullah Omar refused to hand over Bin Laden until the very last minute in 2001, so it seems unlikely that he would do so now, Rahmani adds.

Talk of major differences between al Qaeda and the Taliban may just be rumours or the manoeuvrings of various international governments in an attempt to engineer a split, Rahmani says. (END/2008)

Kabul, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a government ministry Thursday, killing at least five and injuring dozens. The attack is the latest in a series this year showing insurgents’ ability to penetrate the capital using complicated and daring methods.

“Security in the capital is decreasing day by day,” says Ajmal Karimi, analyst with the Center for Peace and Conflict studies, a Kabul-based think tank.

He says that Thursday’s attack, which involved multiple insurgents and included small-arms fire, is an example of the sophisticated methods increasingly used.

“With these types of attacks the insurgents are able to make people feel that they cannot trust the government to keep them safe even in the capital,” he says.

At least three insurgents entered the Ministry of Information and Culture, located in a busy section of Kabul, Thursday morning. Witnesses say a gunfight broke out between security officials and the guerrillas, followed by a massive blast that destroyed much of the ministry’s first floor. According to some reports, two insurgents escaped the scene.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying they were targeting foreign advisers. Insurgents may also have hit the ministry because it was one of the least secure.

Kabul is heavily guarded, with thousands of police patrolling, many main arteries closed to traffic, and blast walls surrounding most government buildings. Yet insurgents have staged numerous high-profile attacks.

“In these types of attacks, the insurgents may send one suicide bomber toward the target while another fighter distracts security forces with gunfire,” says Mr. Karimi.

While the attack involved a small team, many complex attacks involve greater numbers of fighters and a more diverse combination of attack methods. According to an American intelligence official with the international forces, this year has seen a 6 to 12 percent increase in assaults involving more than 20 insurgents and multiple attack methods

The blast comes amid talk of negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. “Our enemies are trying to undermine recent efforts by the government for a peaceful solution to end the violence,” President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.

•Danna Harman contributed to this report from Kabul.

Kabul, Afghanistan - Taliban gunmen killed a foreign Christian aid worker in Kabul on Monday, sending a warning against proselytizing in this Muslim country.

While the Islamic insurgents have targeted a number of Christian foreigners working in Afghanistan, the attacks fit into a rise in violence against aid workers.

“This is part of the Taliban’s plan to make life difficult in Kabul,” says Haroun Mir, director of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies. “Everyone is now a target, especially foreigners working for Christian organizations.”

The attack occurred around 8 a.m. Monday when gunmen on motorbikes fired at the aid worker, Gayle Williams, while she was walking to work, witnesses say. The incident took place in a busy section of the capital city that foreigners frequent.

A Taliban spokesman said that the worker was targeted because they believe she was proselytizing. “This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to the people of Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed told the Associated Press. “Our [leaders] issued a decree to kill this woman. This morning our people killed her in Kabul.”

The murdered woman, a British national originally from South Africa, was an employee of Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises (SERVE), a British-based Christian charity that has been working in the region since 1980. The group’s website says that its purpose is to “express God’s love and bring hope by serving the people of Afghanistan.”

The group has been accused of teaching Christianity to Afghans in the past, says a source familiar with the incident.

Insurgents have eyes and ears in Kabul

The attack suggests that the insurgents have a reliable intelligence apparatus within Kabul that can track Christian charities and other foreigners.

“The Taliban had a very organized government when they were in power, and after their fall many of their people stayed behind in Kabul,” says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of Sciences based in Kabul.

Ms. Williams did not travel in a marked vehicle, which means the Taliban must have relied on informants in the area to discover that she belonged to a Christian charity, continues Mr. Rafeh. Monday’s attack most likely took a good deal of advanced planning, he adds.

Religious freedom not widely protected

The presence of Christian organizations in Afghanistan has been a sensitive issue in recent years. The population of Afghan Christians is small – less than 1 percent of the population. They often worship in secret, for fear of reprisal from neighbors. Churches are more concentrated in Kabul and in northern cities, where the Taliban has less of a presence.

A handful of Christian NGOs that operate in the country, such as Christian Aid and Catholic Relief Services, although members usually say they are only involved in humanitarian and not religious work.

Although the Afghan Constitution does not prohibit the practice of different religions, the preponderance of religious conservatives in the country’s judicial system and among community leaders has meant that religious freedom is greatly inhibited.

“We are not a normal country – we are at war,” says Mr. Mir, the analyst. The government worries that if it doesn’t shore up its Islamic credentials, this will be of propaganda use to the Taliban, he explains.

In January, a Christian woman working for an international aid organization was abducted in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, although it is unclear whether the motive was related to her religious background.

Last year the Taliban abducted a bus load of 23 South Korean missionaries on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. Two were killed but 21 were freed after extensive negotiations.

In 2006, an Afghan court sentenced an Afghan man to death for converting to Christianity. Pressure from international groups forced the Afghan government to allow him to leave the country, and he was eventually granted exile in Italy.

Attacks on aid workers up

The attack comes at a time when the threats posed to international NGOs working in the country are at an all-time high. A report released last week by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), a body that monitors NGO activity in the country, says that there have been 146 incidents of violence against NGOs so far this year, already more than in all of 2007. This marks the highest rate since ANSO began keeping track of attacks in 2002.

Kidnappings and general insecurity have also been on the rise. This year has seen “unprecedented levels of violence,” according to the ANSO report. “Many South and East districts have arrived at the saturation point with little territory remaining for the [Taliban] to take.”

Kabul has also seen a spate of kidnapping in recent weeks, including the abduction of a high-profile former presidential candidate on Sunday.

Kabul, Afghanistan - In a musty room near the edge of town, a group of bearded men sit on the floor and heatedly discuss strategy. The men are in the planning stages of an event that they hope will impact Afghan politics – a peace jirga, or assembly, that will agitate for the end of the war between the Taliban and Afghan government by asking the two sides to come to a settlement.

“People are growing tired of the fighting,” says Bakhtar Aminzai of the National Peace Jirga of Afghanistan, an association of students, professors, lawyers, clerics, and others. “We need to pressure the Afghan government and the international community to find a solution without using guns.”

Mr. Aminzai is not alone in his sentiments. As violence and insecurity grow in this war-ravaged nation, a broad network of peace activists have been quietly pushing for negotiations and reconciliation with the Taliban.

This push coincides with recent preliminary talks in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government hosted a secret high-level meeting in September with former Taliban officials and members of the Afghan government. The event was intended to ultimately open the door to direct talks with the Taliban.

Analysts interviewed say that the majority of Afghans favor some sort of negotiated settlement between the warring sides, but many peace activists are critical of the Saudi talks. “We want reconciliation with the Taliban through a loya jirga,” or grand assembly of Afghans, says Fatana Gilani, head of the Afghanistan Women’s Council (AWC), a leading nongovernmental organization (NGO) here. “We don’t want interference from foreign countries or negotiations behind closed doors,” she says.

Like the AWC, many local NGOs have incorporated antiwar activities into their routine and are joining with other civil society groups to promote the idea of dialogue. The AWC convened a “peace assembly” this past Spring and invited members of the Afghan government and the Taliban to attend. It has also run seminars and conferences in Kandahar, the Taliban’s heartland, promoting negotiation.

The National Peace Jirga also organized a series of peace assemblies in recent months, drawing thousands of people. The meetings often feature fiery speakers who condemn international forces for killing civilians – but who also criticize the Taliban.

“Afghanicide – the killing of Afghanistan – must be stopped,” says Israir Ahmed Karimizai, a leader of Awakened Youth of Afghanistan, a prominent antiwar group. After seeing the violence grow sharply last year, Mr. Karimizai and a group of friends formed Awakened Youth with the aim of creating a movement that is independent of both the government and the Taliban. In late September the group headed an initiative to observe International Peace Day with speeches, rallies, and a pledge from both the international forces and the Taliban to lay down their arms for one day. When both sides mostly complied, making that day one of the least violent in the country’s recent history, Awakened Youth members and other activists say they were inspired to redouble their efforts.

Awakened Youth is just one of the many Afghan-run civil society organizations that have sprung up in recent years. While international NGOs receive most of the attention, Afghan NGOs actually make up the bulk of the NGO presence in the country, says M. Hashim Mayar, deputy director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella organization of NGOs active in the country. “Local NGOs are playing more of a role, especially as the security situation deteriorates,” he says. ACBAR estimates that of the roughly 1,400 registered NGOs, nearly 1,100 are purely Afghan operations.

Sheila Samimi, manager of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), another prominent NGO that focuses on women’s rights, says that local NGOs are well-suited to deliver an antiwar message to Afghans. AWN is composed of 63 small women-oriented NGOs that work around the country.

In a small, crowded schoolroom outside Kabul students watch a video of a young girl forced into marriage. The girl, unable to run a household at such an age, gets viciously beaten to death by her in-laws. In the closing scene, the girl’s tearful parents regret having given their daughter for marriage and beg the viewer for forgiveness.

The AWN also uses their classroom visits to teach young rural Afghans about politics and the benefits of peace.

Meanwhile, members of the Afghanistan Women’s Council are trained in making arguments based on Islamic law. In poor, conservative Afghan villages, the AWC dispatches women to teach about women’s rights and the virtues of supporting peace negotiations.

Despite these strengths, Afghan peace groups are also beset by weaknesses, says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of the Sciences. “A lot of these parties are organized along ethnic or tribal lines,” he says. The Awakened Youth and the National Peace Jirga, for instance, consist mostly of Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group.

Many Afghan NGOs rely on foreign donors for support, which may weaken their ability to act independently. “Afghan civil society operations are very much framed by the budget lines of the donor” says Nader Nadery of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

For Ms. Gilani and other peace activists, this doesn’t mean however that they let the West off lightly, however. “We are against Western policy in Afghanistan,” she says. “They should bury their guns in a grave and focus on diplomacy and economic development.”

Porak, Afghanistan - After a gang of thieves had continually terrorized an Afghan neighborhood near here months ago, locals decided they’d had enough. “We complained several times to the government and even showed them where the thieves lived,” says Ahmad, who goes by one name.

But the bandits continued to operate freely. So the villagers turned to the Taliban.

The militants’ parallel government here in Logar Province – less than 40 miles from Kabul, the capital – tried and convicted the men, tarred their faces, paraded them around, and threatened to chop off their hands if they were caught stealing in the future. The thieves never bothered the locals again.

In several provinces close to Kabul, the government’s presence is vanishing or already nonexistent, residents say. In its place, a more effective – and brutal – Taliban shadow government is spreading and winning local support.

“The police are just for show,” one local says. “The Taliban are the real power here.”

Widespread disillusionment with rampant crime, corrupt government, and lack of jobs has fueled the Taliban’s rise to de facto power – though mainly in areas dominated by fellow ethnic Pashtuns. Still, the existence of Taliban power structures so close to Kabul shows the extent to which the Afghan government has lost control of the country.

“This is a major problem for them,” says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of Sciences. “Even though the Taliban can’t capture Kabul militarily because of the strength of the international forces there, the government can’t stop them from operating freely just outside of the city.”

When President Hamid Karzai’s government first took power in 2001, “authorities gave every family in Logar two kilos of food,” says a local resident who works with an international nongovernmental organization and identifies himself as Abdel Qabir. “When that ran out each family received $200 assistance. But that, too, ran out, and people had no money and there were criminals everywhere.

“So people turned to the Taliban,” Mr. Qabir continues. “They may not provide jobs, but at least they share the same culture and brought security.”

Villagers say that almost every household in Logar Province has Taliban fighters. By day the area is quiet – most people stay indoors behind large mud walls or tend to their fields. A tiny roadside market sells dried fruits and soft drinks, and the shops often go unattended for hours.

As nightfall approaches, Taliban fighters slowly emerge from the houses and surrounding hillsides, some lugging rocket-propelled grenade launchers over their shoulders, ready to begin a night’s work. The guerrillas set up checkpoints along Logar Province’s central highway, stopping trucks and taxis to check IDs.

A few miles away sits a police checkpoint, but the police say they don’t dare enter the Taliban-controlled areas. Yet many villagers say they don’t need the police, since crime has almost vanished.

The foreign troop presence in Logar and neighboring provinces remains limited, too. NATO forces tend to only patrol some areas and focus their efforts on specific operations, usually at night.

The Taliban now have a strong presence in all seven of Logar’s districts, including outright control of four of them, locals say. “In these districts the Taliban patrol openly in the daytime and there is no government presence at all,” says Qabir.

In neighboring Ghazni Province, the Taliban is in full control of 13 of the 18 districts, according to locals. Similarly, in Wardak, which neighbors Kabul, the insurgents have control of six of eight districts. None of the six districts in either province dominated by ethnic Hazaras, however, are run by the Taliban.

In areas under their control, the Taliban has set up their own government, complete with police chiefs, judges, and even education committees.

An Islamic scholar heads the judicial committee of each district under Taliban control and usually appoints two judges to try cases using a strict interpretation of sharia law, according to locals and Taliban members. “We prefer these courts to the government courts,” says Fazel Wali of Ghazni city, an NGO worker. Taliban courts have a reputation of working much faster than government ones, which often take months to decide cases and are saddled with corruption, he says.

The Taliban’s parallel government is also involved in local education. Employees with Coordination for Afghan Relief, an Afghan NGO that works in Ghazni city and trains teachers, say Taliban authorities recently gave them a letter detailing the “allowed curriculum” in local schools.

Abdul Hakim, a Taliban “Emir of Education and Culture” in Ghazni Province, says his group checks all schoolbooks to ensure that they adhere to their version of sharia law. “We want to ensure that our youth are trained in Islamic education,” he explains. “First, they should learn sharia law and religious studies. Then comes science and other subjects…. But we don’t burn or close down schools if they are in accord with Islam.”

However, locals say that the number of schools in Taliban-controlled territory is dwindling fast. Of the 1,100 schools operating three years ago in Ghazni, only 100 are left, according to the Ministry of Education. Almost no girls’ schools remain, except nearly a dozen in the government-controlled provincial center.

The group also brings its austere interpretation of Islam to the areas they control, banning nonreligious music and flashy wedding parties. In Logar, guards at Taliban checkpoints regularly stop vehicles and beat drivers playing music.

The government police often refuse to enter Taliban territory. In Logar Province, when the Taliban set ablaze the homes of suspected government sympathizers during the middle of the night a few months ago, the locals called the police, desperate. “But the police actually told us to wait until morning, since they don’t like to come out at night,” recalls one resident. The houses burned to the ground.

Mozafaradeen Wardak, chief of police in Wardak Province, denies the allegations and says that, while the insurgents may have control in places like Logar and Ghazni, the police still regularly patrol.

Independent political analyst Waheed Muzhda says the Taliban’s advance from the south toward Kabul resembles their progression when they first took power 12 years ago. In both cases, he says, they won support by bringing law and order.

“We have no TV. We can’t listen to music. We don’t have parties,” says Abdul Halim of Ghazni Province, who, like others in the area, is a Taliban supporter. “But at least we have security and justice.”