A Country On Edge

The borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan have become home not only to millions of refugees, but also to countless rumors about the fate of the Taliban government inside Afghanistan. Everyone here, from Pakistani spies to Afghan heroin smugglers, has a different take on the future of Kabul's despotic clerics. And though much of the gossip about what is happening in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan--mass defections of soldiers, for instance--is just gossip, there are signs of weakness, hints that the tight core of men around Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar are at the very least anxious about what may be coming their way. Their announcement on Saturday morning, for instance, that they would consider releasing eight Christian missionaries held on charges of spreading religious doctrine, seemed to some a slight tremble of nerves. "If [the U.S.] stops issuing threats," a Taliban communique said, "we will take steps for the release of the eight foreigners."

But the threats--and the broad international alliance gathering to fight terror--already seem to have begun weakening some elements of the Taliban's rule. Until the Sept. 11 suicide attacks, for example, neighboring Pakistan had treated the Taliban with the patience of a father dealing with a delinquent teenager. No longer. Last week Pakistani authorities wasted no time in beginning to consider a replacement for the warrior-clerics ruling Afghanistan. The question is whether isolation and U.S.-led pressure will be enough to collapse the Taliban.

For every tale of courage in Afghanistan's bloody history, there is a corresponding one of betrayal, with loyalties that shift like the desert sands. That shift is beginning against the Taliban's leadership. Fissures are appearing in the Taliban ranks between hard-liners and so-called moderates, who privately believe that Mohammed Omar's refusal to hand over terrorist Osama bin Laden is akin to mass suicide. Says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani author and expert on the Taliban movement: "The U.S. threat is helping to divide the Taliban." Rashid says the Taliban's "fellow travelers," the tribal leaders who don't share the Taliban's extremism, will be the first to shear off, leaving Omar with a die-hard band of devout followers.

This is a rift that Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials are eager to widen. In the border cities of Quetta and Peshawar, Pakistani military intelligence agents are dusting off Afghan war veterans and putting them to work sending out feelers to fellow ex-commanders who are serving the Taliban. Those commanders are being urged to defect in exchange for bribes and the guarantee of a job in the next Afghan government. First indications are promising, according to anti-Taliban sources in both cities. When he asked about arms, one commander from Afghanistan's Nangarhar province was assured that anti-Taliban groups had already started making large purchases. "This reminds me of the old days when the CIA was pumping in money and arms to fight the Russians. But now it's Afghans against Afghans," says an Afghan-affairs specialist in Peshawar. These overtures rattled local clergy enough that they issued warnings to Afghans to choose either "money or Islam."

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