Despite Taliban departure, much of Afghanistan remains lawless

By GREG MYRE
Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan – Gunmen help themselves to tons of food from a U.N. truck convoy rumbling across the desert in western Afghanistan. Aid groups in several cities have had their offices looted, down to the window frames in one case.

The roads leading out of the capital serve up a host of dangers, from bandits laying in wait, to free-lance militiamen who have set up their personal checkpoints and well-hidden land mines.

The Taliban have been driven out of much of Afghanistan, but many regions are witnessing a recurrence of the lawlessness that plagued the country before the Islamic militia came to power five years ago.

The Taliban's initial burst of popularity was built on their ability to end the chaos that had engulfed much of the country, and the re-emerging security woes threaten international efforts to deliver food supplies and Afghan attempts to form a stable government.

"Insecurity remains a major hurdle for the distribution of humanitarian aid," U.N. spokesman Eric Falt said Wednesday. "Of course, we have to be concerned about the security of our people. We also have to make sure that food reaches people in need."

The United Nations is seeking to speed up the formation of a new government by sponsoring a conference for four major Afghan political groupings in Bonn, Germany, next week.

The organization is also seeking to re-establish offices and step up food aid shipments.

At present, the fighting in Afghanistan is confined to the city of Kunduz in the north where a pocket of Taliban fighters are surrounded, and U.S. bombing raids in Taliban strongholds in the south.

The northern alliance and other anti-Taliban forces hold most of the country, but aren't necessarily cooperating and haven't subdued unruly elements.

In the latest incident, an armed gang pilfered 185 tons of food from the U.N.'s World Food Program as its trucks were traveling near the remote western town of Shindand, forcing the rest of the convoy to turn back.

U.N. security teams are assessing the stability in many parts of the country, though conditions are so fluid that a road may be safe one day and targeted the next.

For the moment, Kabul is calm and under the control of the northern alliance, which has 3,000 security troops spread about the city. And with the Taliban driven out of almost all the north and east of the country, aid groups have been able to reopen delivery routes from neighboring countries.

The United Nations has succeeded in sending in 52,000 tons of food in the past few weeks, enough to cover the needs of the 6 million Afghans requiring aid over the next month.

However, the increase in aid deliveries and the arrival of hundreds of journalists, often traveling with expensive equipment over long stretches of empty road, have created tempting opportunities for highway robbers.

The aid convoys travel unarmed on the principle that having guards could provoke a shootout. The thieves also operate with the knowledge that there's nothing resembling a functioning legal system in Afghanistan.

"The principle of justice in Afghanistan is something that is going to have to be set up in the long term," Falt said.

Amid the fighting in the past couple weeks, U.N. offices in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and the eastern city of Jalalabad have both been swept clean by thieves.

The looting included the theft of food, vehicles and communications equipment – even the window frames were stripped from some offices, said Falt.

Also, four journalists working for foreign news organizations were shot dead Monday while traveling on the main road toward Kabul, which winds through mountain passes and deep gorges.

Other journalists have been robbed on the route around the city of Sarobi, a favorite site of highway bandits when Afghanistan suffered years of lawlessness in the 1990s. It is not clear who is responsible for the attacks.

The road, most of it reduced to a rutted track years ago, is Kabul's main link to Pakistan. Yet the route has become a virtual no-go zone.

The United Nations, which is flying planes from the Bagram air base north of Kabul to Islamabad, Pakistan, says its insurance company is charging $50,000 for each flight, which takes a little over an hour.

Because the land route is so dangerous, the United Nations is offering seats to journalists – but to defray the hefty insurance costs, is charging $2,500 for a one-way flight.

AP-WS-11-21-01 1535EST