PICTURE SPEAK

PRAYING FOR WAR: Taliban fighters gather at the Laghman province

As government officials in the far north of Helmand Province, they are the targets of the Taliban. They are the representatives of the hated Kabul regime, run, in the eyes of the Taliban, by an apostate and propped up by western "Zionist-Crusader" powers. Currently, their administrative power is limited to the two-mile wide radius that the soldiers patrol. One of the police chief's badly paid subordinates is clear about what would happen if the NATO troops come off worse in the fighting that everyone expects this spring. "I'll be skinned alive," he says. Judging by the fate that befell a French special forces unit that drove into a Taliban ambush last autumn, the words are more than a figure of speech.

This spring is going to be crucial for Afghanistan, for the increasingly fragile President Hamid Karzai, for the alliance of nations attempting to stabilise and rebuild the shattered nation and for the region. While all attention is focussed on the surge in Baghdad, few are taking note of the equally critical surge in Afghanistan. Last year's violence-in which 4,000 are said to have died-had given NATO countries and governments throughout Asia and the Middle-East a nasty shock. The next few months will show if last year's hastily formulated plans to make up for the ground lost since the invasion of 2001 in the critical southwest Asian state will work-or whether the violence will at best continue or worsen.

It is going to be a tough fight. While few expect the 31,000 NATO troops-shortly to be reinforced with an extra 5,000 men-to be defeated in the coming months, fewer think Karzai's Government is likely to collapse but that the Taliban are far from beaten is widely acknowledged. In Kabul headquarters, outgoing head of NATO forces, General David Richards of Britain, remarked that the threat from the insurgents in Afghanistan had merely been "contained" and that he was "content" with the progress made in the last 12 months. The job in the coming year, said one of his senior officers, is to "write the insurgency down" and this is doable.

The problem, however, is gauging the strength of the opposition. NATO commanders like to talk about the "psychological ascendancy" they have gained after a critical engagement, fought along conventional lines, last autumn. In the fighting outside Kandahar, 1,000 Taliban were killed, they say. What they do not say is that their opponents, too, put up a solid fight, resisting the might of the amassed NATO and independent American air power for five days before breaking. Western soldiers who had fought the insurgents say they are surprised by their opponents' resilience and tactical skill.

PICTURE SPEAK

ON GUARD: A NATO soldier at the site of a suicide attack

However, there are two other elements critical to the composition of the insurgents that are often ignored. The first is the tribal factor. A detailed analysis of who is for the Government and who is against, particularly in the southeast, reveals that the old adage of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" is as current as ever. The second element is the massive culture and political gap between Kabul and the provinces. "Taliban is not a good label," said a senior security analyst of an NGO. "It's more a peasants' revolt, a jacquerie, fuelled by profound resentment of Central authority." This sentiment has, of course, been fuelled by the minimal and delayed reconstruction in the south. And, the continuing programmes of poppy eradication, according to senior government officials, are targeted theoretically at the greedy not the needy. "I am a poppy farmer and I have nothing against the coalition troops. But if my poppy is destroyed, I will be definitely against them," said 64-year-old Amir Mohammed from the Bolan desert district, south of Lashkar Gah.

Then there is the Pakistan factor. General Richards said he no longer trusted Pakistan, after the policy of the mid-1990s when they wanted to "see the Taliban succeed in Afghanistan". Instead, General Richards likened Afghanistan to a supertanker that had been travelling in one direction for 25 years and which the "new captain on the bridge" was having some difficulty in turning. The last meeting of General Richards and his American replacement Dan McNeill, was with President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad. Senior NATO officers pointed to the recent killing of

Mullah Osmani, a senior Taliban commander, in eastern Afghanistan as the result of the co-operation with the Taliban and spoke of the joint intelligence and co-operation cell recently opened with nato, Afghan and Pakistani officers in Kabul. Sources in Kabul alleged that Osmani had been in fact "shopped" to the coalition because he was an enemy and rival of a second Taliban commander favoured by the ISI.

What is clear, however, is that the Taliban high-command is based in or around Quetta. Quite how much of an advantage this might be is debated by analysts. Several communications from commanders in the field have been intercepted complaining of how their leaders are losing touch with the ground reality and making mistakes. Another problem for the Taliban is the continuing support for the Government and NATO throughout the country. "Times are still hard but the foreigners are good because they bring security for people. They are not occupiers like the Taliban claim," said Faiz, a 22-year-old man, who ekes out a living from selling phone cards in the Jaid-e-Maiwand bazaar in Kabul. The general insecurity of last summer, when suicide bombs and riots had rocked the capital, has given way to a guarded optimism.

General Richards prefers to talk of a NATO and Afghan Government "spring campaign" in the months to come and has forbidden his headquarters staff to use the term "Taliban spring offensive". Whatever the name, it is likely to cause deaths of many more insurgents, NATO and Afghan soldiers and civilians before any resolution is reached.

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