KABUL, May 2 2007: Malik Zarin is a warlord. He comes from Kunar, a small province of Afghanistan that shares a border with the self-ruled Pashtun enclaves of Pakistan. Zarin endured a lifetime of fighting. He took part in the resistance against the Soviet Union (1979-1989), attacked the Najibullah government in the convulsed years that followed the dissolution of the communist regime (1989-1992), defended the soft Islamist government of Rabbani and Masoud throughout the civil war (1992-1996) and launched large scale offensives against the Taliban regime once it came to power (1996-2001). A master of insurgency and counter-insurgency tactics, Malik conquered Kunar province on the battlefield and ruled it as he pleased for over a decade. In 2001, when Zarin joined the US-led coalition and upheld the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai, everyone thought his power was bound to increase.

 

   I was somewhat surprised when I learned that Zarin was living in a dilapidated Soviet-style building in the suburbs of Kabul. As I entered his apartment, on the sixth and last floor, all I could see were thick curtains and the shadows of men standing in the dark. One of them escorted me into a large living room, furnished exclusively with rugs and pillows. Some ten men squatted on the floor, taking animatedly in Pashto language and sipping green tea. They sported long beards and the traditional hats from Kunar province. A few minutes later two men armed with Kalashnikovs entered the room. Zarin walked behind them and the room fell into a deferent silence. Zarin looked at me and pushed aside his bodyguards before they had a chance to search me. He shook my hand and invited me into another room where we could to talk alone.

 

   “After September 11 I went to Italy to talk with the Americans. There were many other commanders of the Northern Alliance and we discussed military strategy. At the time, I remember advising the Americans not to invade Afghanistan but to use the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban regime. With a few modern weapons, and perhaps a few days of air cover, we could have taken over Kabul on our own. But the Americans decided to invade and occupy Afghanistan. A big mistake.” I asked Zarin how the population perceives the foreign troops. He answered resolutely: “The Americans allied themselves with the wrong people. They acted upon the misleading information of insincere friends and persecuted the innocent. Also, their military was not prepared to do police work. All the time, out of fear and inexperience, the American soldiers kill civilians. The Afghans don’t trust them anymore.”

 

   I asked Zarin whether he thought that the foreign armies should withdraw from Afghanistan. He hesitated for a moment, then said: “No, they cannot leave now. The Taliban are back on the offensive and if the Americans were to abandon Afghanistan… we would have another civil war here.” A rather strange answer for a warlord who amassed power and riches over three decades of uninterrupted conflict: but evidently this time Zarin is afraid to lose. Indeed, if the Americans withdrew their troops from Afghanistan, it would be rather easy for the Taliban to take over Kunar province. Given the high levels of popular support the Taliban enjoy in the traditional communities on the Pakistani side of the border, Kunar remains one of the most vulnerable provinces of Afghanistan.

 

   Zarin’s facial expression became hard: “Yes, the Taliban are based in Pakistan, right across the border. And now they are coming to the mountains of Kunar. The Pakistani secret services support them, so the Taliban have total freedom of action in the villages along the border. But I will not let them come back to power in Afghanistan. I will give them a very hard time, I promise.” Zarin was trying to sound tough. He wanted to convince me that Kunar is still his stronghold, as in the days of the American invasion. But if the Taliban are now active on the mountains of Kunar, why is Zarin staying in a decrepit building of Kabul, surrounded by his bodyguards?

 

    Perhaps Zarin fled Kunar to save his life. Perhaps he already lost his fiefdom. I was not in a position to break the rules of hospitality and ask questions that my host may have deemed offensive. Moreover, a man like Zarin would never admit to have lost his power. But one thing is for sure. If the foreign armies did withdraw from Afghanistan, the Karzai government would not be able to maintain power and, within a few months, the most vulnerable provinces of Afghanistan would fall under Taliban rule. Many heads would fall in those provinces: the heads of the people who supported the Americans and upheld the legitimacy of the Karzai government. And one of those heads belongs to Malik Zarin.