Singeing the Taliban beard

But while some among those remaining in the Afghan capital may have been keen to escape from the past, the immediate future is still shrouded in confusion. Taliban leaders may have abandoned Kabul, and even the regime's spiritual stronghold of Kandahar, but last night it was by no means clear that the Taliban itself was no more.

And although the Northern Alliance may now be the dominant military force, this does not mean the war on terrorism is coming to an end, according to Dr Barry Gills, reader in international politics at Newcastle University.

"I think it would be premature to think that the war is over," he says. "The strategy seems to be to secure the north of Afghanistan, but stop there for the winter, but I don't think we can guess what the military planners will do.

"It means phase one of the war in Afghanistan is drawing to a close, but they have not secured the whole western zone, and it remains to be seen whether they have the required defections among Pashtun commanders. If a sizeable number do come over, then it may be a very different picture."

The ethnic composition of Afghanistan, with mainly Pashtuns in the south, from whom the Taliban draws its leaders, and Uzbeks and Tajiks in the north making up the bulk of the Northern Alliance, creates the possibility that the country could be partitioned, at least in the short-term, he says.

But while the speed of events over the past 72 hours may have taken even the most optimistic of Western leaders by surprise, the immediate priority is to establish some sort of alternative regime. Tony Blair spoke yesterday of the need for as many different groups as possible to be brought together, but this will be a hard task indeed, says Dr Gills.

'The United Nations now becomes the key player, and is working flat out to put together the broadest possible coalition government, which could then be recognised internationally as the legitimate government of Afghanistan," he says. "It plans to work with all of the parties concerned, and use every kind of lever to keep them working together, rather than fall out, as they did before. They will be given every encouragement and assistance in order to remain co-operative, but it will be extraordinarily difficult."

One of the major obstacles, he says, is that 'warlordism' has become endemic in Afghanistan. Entire generations know little else other than being professional fighters, for one warlord or another. And absorbing these armies into one structure, while avoiding civil war, is a momentous task.

The US also has a major problem in satisfying its new-found ally Pakistan. The support of President Pervez Musharraf has been crucial, but Pakistan has been close to the Taliban, and is hostile to the Northern Alliance. Any future Afghan government will almost certainly have to include Taliban elements.

"For Pakistan, that is going to be essential. It will not be the more extreme members, but it is likely other Pashtun and moderate Taliban will be included, because otherwise Pakistan would be alienated," says Dr Gills. "Pakistan's bottom line is it will not have a hostile government in Afghanistan. They have a problem with India to the east, and they do not want a major problem to the west as well. The United States now occupies a significant position in central Asia, whereas before it was a vacuum for them. If everything goes smoothly that might be a good thing, but if Afghanistan turns out to be intractable, then the US might have walked into a quagmire. The idea of keeping all sides happy is pretty optimistic."

But overthrowing the Taliban was only one of President Bush's war aims by default, after the demand to hand over Osama bin Laden was rejected. The original intention was to bring bin Laden and his al Qaida network to justice, and this may prove much harder, says Dr Gills.

"The problem with al Qaida is that it is not only in Afghanistan - that has been an issue from the beginning in how effective this whole strategy would be. Al Qaida is based in more than 30 countries, and for it to operate it does not have to have the foot-soldier army that it has in Afghanistan.

"Even if you caught every al Qaida soldier in Afghanistan, you would not have destroyed the al Qaida network. A new strategy is needed to deal with the network globally, and not just in Afghanistan. And even then, al Qaida is not the only group with a track record of attacks against the West. People may think if you take Afghanistan away from the Taliban, then the problem is solved - that is almost certainly not the case."

But, for many people, the bottom line is whether the Taliban losing control of Afghanistan makes the world a safer place, and this is far from clear, says Dr Gills. "We do know that we have further alienated Muslim opinion throughout the world," he says. "And we have also set in motion a war response, and some people in Washington may want to keep that going, and attack other governments which they regard as involved in terrorism. The idea that we have arrived at a plateau of safety would be a false sense of security. The point is, where is this going to stop?

"Each time we go down this road, the risks involved will increase and we create a scenario that we can't control, particularly when you are dealing with people who don't abide by conventional rules."

While the two strands, of a war on terrorism and a war on the causes of terrorism, may be running side by side, they could be contradictory aims, he says. Emphasising the importance of finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict may be right, but may be hampered by what is happening in Afghanistan.

'I'm all for the 'tough on the causes of terrorism' part, which is necessary for a long-term solution, but being 'tough on terrorism' by making war in other countries just causes great problems. Even now, when we look like we're approaching some kind of victory, it came at considerable cost.

"We don't want the whole world to become a Palestine-Israel situation, where there is no end in sight and we all live in a constant state of fear. What is required is the kind of restraint and reflection which will neutralise the threat, and not inflame it so it becomes an unending syndrome of an eye for an eye."

And the result of a descent into a perpetual cycle of war would be to set back whatever advances have been made by humanity," says Dr Gills.

"Our children are going to grow up in this world and they're either going to thank us for being wise enough to do the right thing, or they're going to blame us because we brought about disorder.

"We don't want to militarise this out of all proportion and enter into a nightmare of stepping back in history. We can't allow the fear of terrorism to undo whatever progress humanity has made. This is a turning point and we're going to have to deal with this if we're going to have a stable world, otherwise we're entering into an unstable world.