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.

FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

It is said that India straddles many centuries. But Afghanistan has always been trapped in a medieval past. Today, we have a bizarre sight of a ragtag army of an impoverished nation pitted against the technological might of the world's most powerful country. Afghanistan has always held a fatal attraction for superpowers: Britain and Russia in the mid-19th century, the USSR in the 1980s and now the US have been drawn to it by design or default. The Afghans have hunted and haunted every power that entered their territory. It's this redoubtable record that America has to disprove. That explains the doubts and delays in the US retaliation. As a former general of the Afghan Army, Khoshhal Peroz, now a refugee in Delhi, told India Today, "Foreign powers can only divide Afghanistan. They can never rule it." The image of a giant killer has not come cheap for Afghanistan. The land of rich natural resources has dropped off the global map. A war zone deprived of basic civic, economic and social amenities, its people have led a minimal existence for two decades.

	Two of our previous six covers on Afghanistan

That is why, as the world waited for the US' next big move, we decided to shift the focus from the twin Bs-Bush and bin Laden-to present a thorough account of life and struggle in Afghanistan. We have been covering this cursed country since June 1979 ("Marx Vs Mullahs"). From our photo archives we recreated the life in pre-Taliban Afghanistan and contrasted it with the present. The images were brought to life by the accounts of thousands of Afghan refugees in India who were selectively interviewed in Delhi.

Executive Editor Raj Chengappa and Senior Photographer Dilip Banerjee spent the past week in Kazakhstan en route to Afghanistan. Chengappa provides a first-hand analysis of an emerging Great Game in Central Asia-in countries that don't feature in the headlines. We have also delved into possible scenarios in post-Taliban Afghanistan. After all, wherever and whenever the US-led alliance strikes Afghanistan, its success will depend on how decisively it destroys the biggest present day venture capitalists of terrorism-the Taliban.

(Aroon Purie)

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