Price Of A Deal
Musharraf may have bent backwards in a bid to make his country the standard bearer of the US in the region. Of course, there are financial rewards for Pakistan, but the fear of a fundamentalist backlash continues to keep the nation on tenterhooks.

Circle Of Death
Violence fuelled by bigotry and foreign money brought the Taliban to power. Now as things come full circle the Islamic militia may meet an equally brutal end.

Afghanistan 1978-2001
Its women once enjoyed social freedom, and there was joy and peace. It is now a country perverted by the missionaries of a grim utopia. A social history in pictures.

COVER STORY: WAR DIPLOMACY

Target Afghanistan

For the Central Asian states the outcome of the war is not in doubt. The debate is on the future regime in Kabul and the role of the Northern Alliance.

—By Raj Chengappa in Almaty, Kazakhstan

It is being billed as the first great war of the 21st century. But as the US-led "coalition of willing nations" targets the recalcitrant Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the initial tactics for battle could well be taken from Chanakya's Arthashastra. In Dushanbe, the mountain capital of Tajikistan-the strategically located former Soviet republic which has for long been the staging ground for Afghan opposition groups-they have a Russian phrase for it: otkhod podkhod. Roughly translated, it means knowing how to take the devious route.

	MOBILE ARSENAL: Aircraft carrier USS George Washingtaon is ready to stike from the Persian Gulf

Afghan war veterans stationed there even have a formula for the strategy that will determine the war. They call it "70 per cent money and only 30 per cent fighting". The idea is to get many of the tribal warlords loyal to the Taliban to switch sides through bribes and inducements, making the main war easier to fight. So in the first week of the big war, while US President George W. Bush corralled international support before unleashing its military might, the American strategy in Afghanistan itself was an ancient one of dividing the enemy ranks before the real battle begins.

It was perhaps appropriate. Especially against a regime whose avowed mission is to take its country back to a purist Islamic society of medieval times. Also with Afghanistan's warring factions highly vulnerable to such tactics, these have often proved decisive in determining who ruled Kabul. Despite the Taliban controlling 90 per cent of Afghanistan's territory, in the five years since it stormed to power it has been dependant on the loyalty of chieftains to maintain law and order. There were indications last week that the Taliban had become increasingly jittery about counting on their support.

The psychological warfare too seemed to be working, with four million people or a quarter of Afghanistan's population fleeing to neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan, to avoid being caught in the crossfire. It seems the American game is to demolish the Taliban and replace it with a regime hostile to the Islamists, if not favourable to the US. Then the talks of hunting down Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the September 11 attack, would be far easier. It also wants to do this without involving and losing too many of its soldiers on the ground.

As part of its strategy to create an anti-Taliban avalanche, last week it signalled to the Northern Alliance (NA), a loose coalition of Afghan resistance groups, to launch a major offensive. With the Taliban concentrating its forces on defending key cities such as Kandahar and Kabul, the NA made some spectacular gains, even coming within striking distance of Kabul.

Only the week before the September 11 attacks, the NA had been dealt a mortal blow when its charismatic commander Ahmad Shah Masood was killed in a bomb that exploded while he was being interviewed by two journalists. Incidentally, the American media that once gave Masood the sobriquet of Lion of Panjshir has concluded that he was a "secular figure", a sort of Afghan Kemal Ataturk.

That may be unwarranted but smelling a chance to return to power the NA moved swiftly to regroup itself. With Masood gone, a troika assumed charge. It comprised Mohammed Fakhim Khan, Masood's trusted lieutenant and the new defence minister, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and Interior Minister Engineer Arif. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the scholar president of the alliance who heads the Government in exile recognised by the UN, continued as its titular head. While Khan's forces readied for a big thrust from the Panjshir valley, it was another erstwhile warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, who made some major inroads, especially in Mazar-e-Sharif, a key air base. If the opposition forces wrest control of the Salang tunnel, they would for the first time in three years hold sway over the northern territories that account for as much as 40 per cent of Afghanistan.

MetroScape

Fort Of Arms
In the 16th century, a Portuguese governor fortified a strategically located house to defend ships in the harbour of an island on the west coast of India acquired from the Sultan of Gujarat. Mumbai grew first into a fort and then into a city from here.
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Looking Glass

Delhi Photography:
Pradeep Bhatia

Delhi Music Concert: Pandit Ram Chatur Mallick Dhrupad Foundation

Delhi Sculpture: Sculpter Hemi Bawa