No victory yet but scales tip in Afgahnistan

Guardian News Service, London

Victory celebrations in Afghanistan would be premature, even without the news from New York. The rapid advance of the Northern Alliance may yet pause along a line running roughly south-west from Kabul. Most opposition factions say they have no plans to extend their campaign into the Pashtun heartlands.

The retreating Taliban have nowhere to run, except perhaps into Pakistan. With Kandahar still the focal point of Mullah Omar's resistance, Afghanistan could be facing de facto partition largely along ethnic lines.

The danger is that this division may become entrenched unless key Pashtun tribal chiefs switch sides (as U.S.-backed leaders such as Hamid Karzai predict) and the Taliban regime suddenly implodes.

Denied a continuation of the present, successful formula of heavy bombing followed up by proxy ground troops, western special forces would then be reduced to mounting their own hazardous hit- and-run raids. Even under the scenario most favorable to Washington -- the swift collapse of the regime -- it is unclear how a protracted mountain guerrilla war involving Taliban diehards and their Arab, Pakistani and Chechen allies is to be avoided. It is also uncertain how this capture of territory immediately advances the war's almost forgotten, primary objective -- the capture (or if President George Bush has his way, the lethal elimination) of Osama bin Laden and his elusive al-Qaida thugs in the remote caves of Helmand province.

The opposition successes nevertheless present immediate opportunities that must be seized. With the fall of Mazar-i- Sharif, international humanitarian relief efforts can now be channeled across the border from Termez in Uzbekistan. Aid to the 2m northern Afghans most vulnerable to famine and cold can also be expedited via the Iranian border to Herat, if control of that city can be consolidated. The advance should also be used to accelerate the formation of a transitional multi-ethnic government which both includes and restrains the Northern Alliance and its more revengeful members. Britain and France are co-sponsoring a UN resolution to this end, and British foreign secretary Jack Straw speaks of a "province by province" approach to restoring post-Taliban self-government. But an umbrella agreement is required, too, providing for a nascent successor administration physically in place in either Mazar or Kabul. That would provide a crucial rallying point for those in Afghanistan who have not yet taken or changed sides, including moderate Taliban defectors. Urgent consideration must also be given to international peacekeeping in "liberated areas". Since the UN is willing to back but reluctant to provide such a force, Muslim countries such as Turkey or the vociferous Indonesians might take the lead.

Territorial gains and this sense of momentum, of scales tipping, may bring better, faster intelligence in the hunt for Bin Laden. It may even persuade the Taliban to hand him over in return for a respite. If they were to seek negotiations, even at this late stage, America would be unwise to rebuff them. It is also reasonable to expect that these gains will bring Ramadhan reductions in the American aerial bombardment that, while evidently destructive of the Taliban's northern front lines, has caused terrible suffering to civilians elsewhere and much justified outrage in the Muslim world. Likewise, the freeing-up of Arabian Sea carrier groups and other assets consequent on the creation of U.S. land bases inside Afghanistan must not be the occasion for launching new hunts for "war on terrorism" targets in Iraq and beyond.