FRIENDS OF THE TALIBAN

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The momentum of this counterattack carried Massoud's forces through the village of Charikar, where Mohammed Zahid Pashtun, 26, another Pakistani fighter, was stationed. A devout Muslim and former engineering student, Zahid says he signed up for combat duty with a Pakistani intelligence officer and was given 40 days of training. He eventually reached Charikar, where Afghan civilians, who initially welcomed the Taliban, revolted after just 11 days of repressive rule, outraged by a draconian regime that bars women from working outside the home. Also outlawed are movies, music and chess. Captured, he now says he regrets his role. "I heard and saw how the Taliban treated people. If I get home again, I will tell people that the Taliban are not true Islam."

While Massoud is eager to drive them out, the Taliban have sworn they will not leave Kabul. Massoud, an ethnic Tajik, is aided by the Taliban's plummeting popularity, but the key to his offensive is his tenuous alliance with Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful Uzbek warlord, who is with Massoud's forces battling the Taliban near Kabul. The tribal nature of the conflict has always complicated the fighting. Last week the Taliban, mostly ethnic Pashtun, were going house to house in Kabul in search of Tajiks and Uzbeks. Pakistan's meddling can only worsen the hostilities, and the lines of refugees will stretch deep into the winter.

--With reporting by Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi and Lewis M. Simons/Washington