CYANIDE THREAT:
Tapes reveal poison plan

Back to the Perpetrator's Page

John Follain and Nicholas Rufford

10-14-2001

SECRETLY recorded tapes have revealed plans by followers of Osama Bin Laden for a chemical weapon attack in Europe using a poisonous invisible gas that security sources say was cyanide.

A gang of terrorists active in Britain, Germany and Italy plotted to use tins of tomatoes to transport "a liquid that suffocates people". The plan was foiled after a Libyan at the centre of the plot was arrested in Munich on Wednesday.

The evidence is the first that Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organisation was preparing to use weapons of mass destruction. The tapes were made by Italian anti-terrorist police, who bugged an apartment outside Milan that the gang thought was a safe house. The suspects discussed getting 10 litres of the poison, enough to kill thousands if released indoors.

One theory is that the group planned to spread the poison in an American government building in London or Rome. A witness who trained in one of Bin Laden's camps said he was instructed how to put cyanide in a building's ventilation system.

The tins of tomatoes could have been used to transport cyanide crystals before they were dissolved into a liquid, which could then be dispersed through the ventilation ducts. If large quantities were available, the vapour produced could kill many occupants of a building within 10 minutes.

The transcripts are part of evidence compiled by Stefano Dambruoso, an Italian prosecutor, against five suspected members of the Salafist Group for Faith and Combat, a militant offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), backed by Bin Laden. The five are in custody in Milan. At least two had links to Britain.

Last Friday the US Treasury named the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, to which cell members were linked, as "the most important base of Al-Qaeda in Europe". It said the institute was used by Bin Laden's organisation "as a station from which weapons, men and money travel the whole world".

The clandestine recordings were made in March and April, when gang members were becoming impatient to receive instructions from Bin Laden and to be told the target. They also reveal claims that female followers of Bin Laden were being trained as potential suicide attackers.

The most chilling conversations took place between Ben Heni Mohamed Lased, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested in Munich last week, and Essid Sami Ben Khemais, 31, a Tunisian, believed to be the leader of the Italian cell, who was arrested in Milan in April. Khemais is believed to have met Mohammed Atta, one of the 19 hijackers behind the American attacks.

Khemais and Lased spent a week in an apartment near Milan to plan terrorist atrocities, unaware it was bugged. Lased is heard trying to teach Khemais to conceal a bomb in a personal cassette player, to which Khemais responds by asking about chemical weapons: "I'd like to learn how to use the medicine, I'd like to see what effect it has when someone breathes it in. The Libyan has the formula; he's a chemistry professor."

Another activist said: "What's going on - you are putting down your guns and taking up industrial products?" Lased replied: "There's a liquid which is extremely efficient because it suffocates people. Do you want to try it?" The other man said: "Yes, why not. A few barrels."

In another conversation, Khemais urges Lased to get in touch with "the sheikh", believed to be Bin Laden, about recruiting attackers.

"Talk to the sheikh. I need two people who I have already got in mind, the Libyan and the Kurd from London. What I need is not an army but two people who have got a brain, training and nothing to lose or to gain. They spread the gas and say goodbye. I only need a barrel of 10 litres and a few documents. God is with us."

On the evening of March 9, Lased confided: "Believe me, the sheikh is planning something. He has an objective and he wants to realise it, just like he has achieved all his desires. It's not a little thing."

Predicting the success of Bin Laden's terror campaign, Lased said: "God loves us because Europe is now in our hands. Now we are emigrant fighters, that's the task we've got to carry out with honour. We have to be like snakes. We have to fight and then hide."

Lased also explains how to reach Bin Laden's training camps by obtaining a visa from Iran's London embassy, ostensibly for visiting Mecca. "In Iran there is an organisation which helps mujaheddin brothers to cross the border. There's total collaboration with the Iranians," he said.

Khemais talked about trips to Afghanistan during which he saw Bin Laden's weapons, including captured US cruise missiles launched against the camps in 1998 but which failed to explode.

"The Americans are probably convinced that bombing the sheikh's training camps was a victory, but the truth is it was a defeat. Most of the weapons didn't even explode and they have enriched the sheikh's arsenal," he claimed.

BIN LADEN'S NUCLEAR PLOT:
Al-Qaeda's men held secret meetings to build 'dirty bomb'

Adam Nathan and David Leppard

EVIDENCE has emerged of a plan by Osama Bin Laden to manufacture a "dirty bomb" that could spray nuclear material over highly populated areas.

British intelligence services are investigating claims by a Bulgarian businessman that he was approached earlier this year by a middleman for Bin Laden seeking to obtain highly radioactive material.

The pair discussed setting up an environmental company as a front to buy nuclear waste that could be combined with conventional explosives to create a "dirty bomb".

It is believed to be at least the fourth attempt by Bin Laden to obtain nuclear material. The Saudi terrorist has publicly vowed to gain weapons of mass destruction.

The latest approach was made in April after Ivan Ivanov, a Bulgarian businessman with long-standing ties to a Middle Eastern contracting firm, was invited to Pakistan.

On his arrival in Peshawar, Ivanov, a former Bulgarian intelligence officer, said it became clear his hosts were enthusiastic supporters of Bin Laden. They apparently saw his political links in eastern Europe as a "useful asset".

Speaking in a cafe on the outskirts of Sofia last week, Ivanov recalled how the men took him to see Bin Laden, who was speaking at a religious festival on April 10 on the outskirts of Peshawar.

At the time Bin Laden was wanted for his alleged involvement in the bombing in 1998 of two American embassies in Africa, in which more than 200 people had been killed. Yet Ivanov claimed uniformed Pakistani soldiers armed with M-16 machine guns had provided security.

A day later, Ivanov said he was taken on a rough mountainous bus ride along Pakistan's remote border with China. There he was led to a secret location, where he was introduced to Bin Laden as "our partner from Europe".

When Ivanov discreetly checked his Magellan 310 global positioning system, it showed the meeting had actually taken place in China. Western intelligence sources described the meeting near the Pakistani border as "credible".

Ivanov then travelled with his new business associates to a large villa in Rawalpindi. The next day he was approached by a Pakistani scientist who described himself as chemical engineer.

The scientist, who was highly educated and spoke almost fluent English, said he was interested in obtaining spent nuclear fuel rods from the Kozlodui nuclear electricity plant in Bulgaria.

"He wanted a legitimate way of buying nuclear waste from the power plant," said Ivanov. "He was ready to give me money in advance to find local companies to help him to export this material."

Ivanov was offered $200,000 (£137,000) to help set up an environmental firm to buy nuclear waste, and asked if he would run the company. He declined the offer and, on his return home, informed officials in Bulgaria of the meeting.

British authorities in Pakistan later discovered the 49-year-old scientist had been issued with two six-month visas to visit Britain in the last two years. They are now investigating his links with the Bin Laden network.

Although his trips to Britain remain a mystery, intelligence officials believe the scientist may have met sympathisers at British universities or tried to set up front companies similar to the one planned in Bulgaria.

Ivanov's account of the Bin Laden plot has been backed by Velizar Shalamanov, the former Bulgarian deputy defence minister, who last week said Ivanov had worked for the government.

A British diplomatic source in Pakistan said: "This appears to be a sophisticated plot using a scientist and a credible front company, and that is a concern."

Although British intelligence believes Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network may have some crude chemical weapons such as cyanide, there is no evidence to suggest he has obtained any nuclear material.

In September 1998 Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, alleged to be a high-level aide to Bin Laden, was arrested in Germany after trying to buy low- grade nuclear reactor fuel.

Jamal al-Fadl, a former Bin Laden aide, told the FBI he had witnessed Al-Qaeda members trying to buy enriched uranium in the mid-1990s, according to court documents. He also claimed to have been to Sudan, where an associate of an army officer tried to sell him uranium for £1m.

Bin Laden has never made any secret of his interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. In an interview in January 1999, he said: "It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."

Additional reporting: Matthew Brunwasser, Sofia

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.

DIARY OF A TERRORIST :
Inside the mind of a fanatic

Nick Fielding

"I asked them what they had in terms of weapons and he [Sultan] said that he had an AK-47 and a couple of pistols. He said that Farooq had a couple of pistols and some grenades also."

"He said all my travelling and talking around had probably gotten us exposed already. He said if I didn't pull my socks up he'd send me back."

"Shah-Sahib pulled out a pistol with a silencer and looked at him [the hostage] the way a cat does a mouse. I held his hands and gave him the 'everything will be okay' speech."

THE writing is the neat long-hand of a public-school-educated university student, but the words are those of an Islamic fundamentalist on his first terrorist mission.

In a 35-page handwritten diary, Omar Sheikh, a British Muslim who turned his back on his comfortable middle-class upbringing in London for a life of terrorism, describes how he lured four backpackers in India into a trap to kidnap and, if necessary, kill them.

Sheikh, a 20-year-old recruit to a group closely linked with Osama Bin Laden, explains in a matter-of-fact manner how he befriended three Britons and an American over tea and chess in Delhi before taking them to safe houses where, instead of dinner, they were confronted with silenced pistols and an AK-47 assault rifle before being chained up.

He wrote the diary while he was in prison after he and his accomplices were caught when police stormed the houses and freed the hostages. The pages provide the first detailed insight into the mind of an Islamic terrorist on an operation, graphically illustrating how Sheikh and his fellow conspirators were prepared to wait for months to achieve their aims, stalking their victims, building false identities and spinning plausible yarns.

The diary emerged last week after languishing in the archives of the Patiala House Court in New Delhi for six years, evidence that was not used in a trial that never took place. Sheikh was freed in December 1999 by the Indian authorities in exchange for the safe release of passengers on an Indian Airlines jet that had been hijacked by members of his terrorist outfit.

He has since disappeared but is believed to be a key member of Harakut-ul-Mujaheddin (HUM), a fundamentalist group fighting Indian troops in Kashmir. He joined the group after training in Bin Laden camps in Afghanistan.

Until the age of 19, he had been a model student: a prefect at the £8,000-a-year Forest school in east London, a chess champion and a promising undergraduate at the London School of Economics. His conversion to terrorism came during a charity trip to help Muslims in Bosnia when, he says in his diary, he met some mujaheddin, Islamic guerrilla fighters, who recommended he go to the Afghan camps.

It was September 1993. He wrote: "Enter my name for Jundula [a four-month course given only to those dedicating their lives to jihad]. Got introduced to small arms and heavy arms." By the following year he had graduated to become an instructor before being chosen for a special mission: to force India to release six HUM leaders by taking British and American tourists as hostages.

There is evidence of his naivety. Instructed to spend his first night in India in a good hotel, he chose the Holiday Inn. "The bill was an astounding $210 a night. I did not know I had picked the most expensive hotel in town." After meeting up with his accomplices, Sheikh worked on his kidnap plan. "Over the next month, every place I visited I analysed from various points of view as a 'future conqueror' as I fondly imagined myself to be, as a social scientist, a traveller, noting down the intricacies of a new country. I went to mosques and madrasses and talked about ideas pertaining to jihad."

However, his somewhat intellectual approach to his task angered his superior, Shah-Sahib: "He said all my travelling and talking around had probably gotten us exposed already. He said if I didn't pull my socks up he'd send me back. He said until we'd started our mission I ought simply to have stayed in a room and relaxed."

The team initially planned what Sheikh described as a "stick 'em up and grab 'em" approach, where they would seize hostages at gunpoint. HUM had already kidnapped six westerners in Kashmir. Of those one escaped, another was beheaded and four have never been found. Instead, they chose to use subterfuge. Sheikh's role was to use his middle-class charm to entrap tourists. He was told by Shah-Sahib: "Your responsibility is the foreigners . . . remember, American first priority, then British and French."

His first "catch" was an Israeli, who he thought would be an ideal hostage. But on his arrival at the safe house Shah-Sahib was furious. "Shah-Sahib gazed at me incredulously, peered out of the window and saw the 6'3" hulking Israeli standing there, alarmed at seeing so many bearded men sleeping in one room. 'You fool!' hissed Shah-Sahib. 'You'll get us all killed. Take him back to his hotel at once and come back in the morning'."

Sheikh returned the confused Israeli to Delhi before resuming his hunt for hostages. This time, he refined his cover story, pretending to be an "Indian-blooded British national" whose uncle had left him a village. "Given that the feudal system had died out in India for a long time, it seems amazing that the story was greeted with such credible enthusiasm. But the newly arrived traveller to India yearns to hear stories that will increase his insight."

Over games of chess, he persuaded a Briton, Rhys Partridge, to visit his "uncle's village" in a van hired by the gang, where he was taken captive and chained by his ankle. Two other Britons made the fateful journey weeks later.

Sheikh was sent out again, this time to find an American. At a cafe in Delhi he met Bela Nuss, an American about to leave India. "He was a lonely sort of fellow who found in me someone he could talk to," wrote Sheikh. He invited Nuss to dinner, but en route picked up two of his co-conspirators.

Nuss got nervous, but before he could do anything Shah-Sahib pulled out a pistol. They taped his mouth and put him in a burqa, the women's cloak, to stop questions at checkpoints.

From their hideout, Sheikh and his fellow kidnappers sent letters to the Indian authorities demanding the release of HUM terrorists. "It was going to be a waiting game, said the Big Man [Shah-Sahib]. I was forbidden from leaving the house, so I settled myself down to catch up with my Arabic." Within days, however, they were arrested after they were challenged by a police patrol in a lane leading to one of the houses. "The policeman swore at me and tried to drag me to one side by the collar, at which I got furious and started hitting him. The next thing I remember, I felt a stinging blow on my back and I looked around to see the other swinging his rifle at me - the comrades had disappeared. I turned towards him and Bang! I felt the anger being drawn out with the blood."

Sheikh was taken to Meerut jail where he wrote his diary. Now free and being sought by British and Indian authorities, Sheikh, regarded by Indian police as a potential leader of Islamic terrorism, left a haunting threat that he planned to continue his jihad. The last line of his diary warns: "I thought it was the end. It was the end . . . of one era and the beginning of another."

THE FULL DIARY

October 92: Joined the London School of Economics

November: `Bosnia Week'. Saw the film 'Destruction of a Nation'. Got involved in various things like fund collections, talks, demonstrations etc.

December: Preperation for the Bosnia Conference organised by reps from all the London colleges

January 93: The Bosnia Conference. Good conference but no follow up.

February: Go to Pakistan for a week. Take tapes regarding Bosnian issue. Meet Ameer-ul Aseem, secretary of information, Jamaat-i-islami. Spread tapes.

March 93: Meet Asad Khan. Start working with Convey of Mercy.

April 93: Go with Convey of Mercy up to Split in Croatia. Too ill to accompany them into Bosnia. Meet Mujahideen going into Bosnia who recommend training in Afghanistan first. Back for England with recommendation letter from Abdur Rauf for Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Try to get back into academic to prepare for exams. Still attending talks by various groups. Can't settle down. Leave for Pakistan. Go to Lahore office of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM).

Meet also Dr Israr of Jamaat-i-islami. Decide HUM best option. Leave for Afghanistan via Islamabad.

August: After two weeks in Afghanistan very ill. Have to leave for Lahore, where relations are shocked to see my state and put up great resistance. Finally I manage to leave again.

September: Enter my name for Jundula (four month-long course only given to those dedicating their lives to jihad). Got introduced to small arms and heavy arms.

October-December: Jundula interrupted. Two ex-SSG guys named Saleem and Abdul Hafeez come and teach on special arrangements. The 10 or so members of Jundula are joined by 40 or so permanent members of HUM. SSG guys introduce new things such as formations, raid & ambush tactics, blasting, intelligence tactics, field-work, survival etc.

December: Maulana Abdullah comes to camp and asks me what I would like to do. I mention Bosnia. Asks me if I'd pop over to india first, but doesn't specify purpose. I go to Islamabad but get told visa will not be issued for a month by which time my passport will expire. I tell Maulana Abdullah who suggests I go back to the camp and become an instructor. I tell him passport will expire and also that I'd like to go back to UK and encourage people for training.

January 94: Back to England after some time with relatives in Lahore.

Jan-April: Encourage people to go for training. In this time, I collect many items of interest for the camp and also given funds by people (though I don't ask for them). Also have problem with convincing my family that I'm leaving again. Renew passport and get India and Pak visa.

May: Back to Afghanistan. After refreshing my knowledge for a couple of weeks, I start instructing a class for the 40-day course.

June: At the end of the month, Maulana Abdullah comes by to the camp and asks whether I'd help in getting our comrades freed. I say yes. He tells me that they almost succeeded when two Britishers were taken hostage in Kashmir - only because of a lack of communication, an unconditional release was made. He says the same thing done inside in central India done in an organised way would succeed.

July: I wind up things in the camp and go to Islamabad. I meet Maulana Abdullah and Shah 'saab' and am told that Shah saab will need things.

I go to Lahore, spend more days with relatives and leave.

Om July 26, 1994, I arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport. I came by PIA and the plane had left Lahore at 3.00 pm. I went by autorickshaw to Connaught Place. My instructions in Pakistan had been to spend the first night in some good hotel and then contact the two phone numbers I had been given the next day. I was to ask for a ``Farooq.'' Maulana Abdullah (a Harkat operative in Pakistan) had given me these instructions over the phone.

When I got to Connaught Place, I stopped a passer-by and asked which was a 'good hotel' to stay in. He mentioned a few names, one of which was Holiday Inn. I chose to go to this because the name was familiar.

I registered under my own name and gave my passport number. The bill was an astounding $ 210/night. I did not know I had picked the most expensive hotel in town - I thought all Delhi hotels were this expensive and that my money would soon run out!

Therefore I decided I had better contact Farooq straightaway. I phoned both numbers from the hotel. Both answered there was no Farooq there. This worried me even more and I debated whether to contact Maulana Abdullah in Islamabad but decided against it since it would have been grossly against principles to phone head-office from a hotel...

Sultan (an accomplice) took me to a guest house in the Jama Masjid bazaar area. After we checked in, Sultan became much more friendly. I asked him if Mr Zubair Shah (the chief of my mission) had arrived and he said not yet but he would soon. He said he had been very pleased to hear of him coming since they had fought many battles together in Afghanistan.

Back in the guest house, we chatted for a while. Sultan was from Punjab in Pakistan and had instructed several of the lads I had been a co-instructor with. I asked him about conditions here and he said they were not going well mainly because Farooq and he were not getting on - they didn't know who was in charge between them and they didn't have clear directions from Pakistan. I asked them what they had in terms of weapons and he said that he had an AK-47 and a couple of pistols. He said that Farooq had a couple of pistols and some grenades also. I asked him where the stuff had come from but he was evasive. Later on I learnt that they had come from Kashmir - but by which route or other details I do not know.

I managed to persuade Sultan to take me to where he lived - the Ganda Nala house in Nizamuddin. At that time Sultan, Farooq and Nasir, a chap who had come via Nepal from Pakistan in order to go to Kashmir, were staying there. We sat down and discussed what our steps should be. Sultan and Farooq wanted to wait until Shah-Saab arrived before starting anything.

I said we should seriously consider buying a house in Delhi. They said that the money that had been sent to them from Pakistan had been taken by some Aswat Darr - who had betrayed after the arrest of Maulana Masood. I said I wanted to see him. They reminded me that the instructions they had received from Pakistan were that I was supposed to do the job I was sent for, namely kidnapping, and not interfere in what they were doing.

(Over the next one month) every place I visited, I analysed from various points of view - as a ``future conquerer'' as I fondly imagined myself to be, as a social scientist, a traveller, noting down the intricacies of a new country and as an introspector. I went to mosques and madrassas and talked about ideas pertaining to Jihad. Among the madrassa students, I felt there was great potential for an Islamic movement to emerge but the great obstacle was that the students were generally not capable of independent conclusions - they concluded what their teachers told them to.

Nearing the end of August, I was told by Sultan that 'someone has come - meet me tomorrow at Jamia mosque and we'll talk with him.' I knew it must be Shah-Saab. Indeed it was. Only it was not the smiling, cheerful person I remembered from Islamabad. He had thinned considerably, his first words were ones of reproach. He said all my travelling and talking around had probably gotten us exposed already. He said if I didn't pull my socks up he'd send me back. He said until we'd started on our mission I ought simply to have stayed in a room and relaxed...

After a few days, Shah-Saab came to the house with Sultan. We all had lunch together and then Shah-Saab said he'd wanted to talk to me separately. 'Your responsibility is the foreigners,' he said. 'I'm pursuing the other channels also but the people concerned won't know about you and you won't know about them. Remember, American first priority, then British and French.'

Then he sent me on my first task. I was to go to Agra on a tourist bus noting on the way all the stops it made for refreshments. I was to note the composition of the foreigners at the monuments. This was a reccee mission. At this time, a 'stick 'em up and grab' operation was on the cards, since I had explained to Shah-Saab that I had been to many tourist places already and found it difficult to initiate conversations with foreigners, let alone befriend them.

Next morning at about 7.00 am I was picked up outside Hotel 55. The bus was of a company called Jayco Travels. To my dismay there were no foreigners, only Indian tourists. However, since the bus was only half full, they transferred the passengers to another bus. This second one was air-conditioned and had a few foreigners. Most importantly, one of them, an Israeli came and sat next to me. He introduced himself as Akhmir something. I immediately started working out how I could arrange to meet him later and throughout the day I tried...with no success.

It was late at night when the bus broke down on our return journey to Delhi. All the passengers were worried since there seemed no way to get back. Then a van drove by and I thumbed it to stop. An Iranian couple, Akhmir and myself rushed to it and asked if we could go to Delhi.

The driver and his companion agreed to give us a lift to Delhi. We got off at Delhi about 10 minutes from Nizamuddin. I sent the Iranian couple with an autorickshaw to their hotel and sat with Akhmir in another auto saying that I would get off on the way to Pahar Ganj where Akhmir had directed the automan. As we approached Nizamuddin, I started quarelling loudly with the rickshaw-man. He retaliated and stopped the rickshaw. I told the bemused Akhmir that the rickshaw-man was mad and was asking Rs 500 for the journey and that there was no knowing where he might take us if we didn't pay. Akhmir hurriedly got off with me. 'Never mind,' I said. 'I've got a friend near here who can give us a lift.'

So finally, I brought him to the Ganda Nala house. It was 2 in the morning. I hammered on the door and Farooq opened it. I winked at him. Akhmir followed me up the stairs. I saw that both Shah-Saab and Sultan were sleeping in the room as well as Nasim and Farooq. I woke up Shah-Saab and told him, hiding my excitement, that I'd brought back an Israeli and all we had to do was overpower him. Shah-Saab gazed at me incredulously, peered out of the window and saw the 6'3'' hulking Akhmir standing there, alarmed at seeing so many bearded men sleeping in one room. 'You fool,' hissed Shah-Saab. 'You'll get us all killed. Take him back to his hotel at once and come back in the morning.'

Cresfallen, I went to Akhmir and told him that my friend had lent his car out. I took him down, woke up an autorickshaw man and went with him to Paharganj. He was staying at Hare Rama Hotel. I was refused a room because I said I was a foreigner but had no passport. So I went back to Nizamuddin.

Next morning, after everyone had a good laugh, Shah-Saab gave me my next instruction. I was to go to places of tourist interest inside Delhi and see if I could start establishing friendship with tourists. Our next meeting was arranged for Jamia mosque. On the outset, I found the friendship task next to impossible. How on earth do you go up to a foreigner and suddenly become friends? Especially when he has a female partner with him or a dozen salesmen calling out to him. In our meeting at Jamia Mosque, I told Shah-Saab that the only way was the stick 'em up and snatch style. But he urged me to keep trying.

On the next day, I was at ISBT when I saw a foreign chap wandering about. I asked him where he was going. He said Dehra Dun. I quickly made up my mind. My experience with Akhmir had shown that journeys together gave an excellent opportunity to initiate friendships. So I said, 'What a surprise - I'm going there too!' and got with him on the bus. His name was Richard and he was a British student who had arranged to have teaching experience at Doon School, Dehra Dun. He will be a teacher there now. By the time we got to Doon School, I had not only initiated a friendship - I had put forward the idea of spending time together touring India. I spent the night at Hotel Relax at Dehra Dun but failed to start up a conversation with the foreign couple staying there.

Back to Delhi, Shah 'saab' told me to leave the tourists aside and look for foreigners under the protection of the Indian Government as he called them i.e. diplomats and engineers based here.

One night Nasir said he was moving out. He left. I had the room to myself. Now, since I had been in India, the sight of emaciated beggars everywhere particularly round the (Nizamuddin) Markaz had posed a serious dilemma for me. I had never seen so much poverty first hand in my life before. But I had soon realised that superficial help was only perpetuating the problem - most of the money they received was spent on cigarettes or charas. But they were genuinely needy people. Anyway, that night I decided that since I had the room to myself, I would offer to share it with an old one-legged man who sat outside the Markaz. I went and brought the old man to the room. We had dinner and I was enjoying one of his stories when Farooq arrived. He declared that the old man had to leave the house. I tried to reason with him but he said that my 'antics' were putting everyone in risk. I lost my temper, packed up my stuff and left - taking the old man with me - and telling Farooq I was sorry I had such a cowardly set of companions.

I had taken Salahuddin and Siddique to meet Shah 'saab' at Jamia mosque. Shah 'saab' talked to them in turns. He had told me that they were suitable for sentry duty over whoever was kidnapped. My search for foreign employees based in India took me to the Chanakyapuri side. But I didn't see much scope since security was tight - even to my optimistic eyes.

It was about the third week of September when Shah 'saab' told me in a Jamia Masjid meeting to bring Salahuddin and Siddique early the next day. He said that he had finally managed to arrange a house in a remote area in Saharanpur where the neighbourhood was Muslim and undeveloped to the extent that it was unlikely to have an effective system of informers. Siddique and Salahuddin were to be left in the house and be on the ready. I was to go and see the house and cook up a story accordingly to entice people there the same way as I had bought the Israeli. Sultan would be taking us there and would have two pistols with him - so we have to be alert on the way.

We got to Saharanpur, the four of us, and from the bus stand we went by cycle rickshaw to a place called Katha Keri. From there it was a short walk to the house. When I saw the house, my heart sank. How the hell was I supposed to bring a foreigner all the way here? And that unnoticed by the local people? Salahuddin was aggrieved at the prospect of himself having to stay virtually prisoner there for may be weeks to come. Siddique was jumping up and down in joy and making little gestures with the pistols. Sultan beamed at me and said, 'Like it?'

'No,' I said sharply. He was surprised. I didn't bother to start to explain. I'd explain to Big Man himself. But then I cheered up. This wasn't far from Dehra Dun and I'd give ol' Richard a shot any day. So I told Sultan I wouldn't go back with him to Delhi and would go out 'on the hunt' straightaway.

I stayed the night with Sal and Sid - and set off for Dehra Dun the next day. I met Richard at the school and he had got over his cultural shock and was involved with school activities such that he couldn't take time off to visit my 'relatives'. After Richard refused, I went onto Mussoorie, the hill-station and checked most of the hotels there but due to the agitation at that time, there were no foreigners there at all. I stayed at a hotel in front of the mosque there. Next morning, I went to Woodstock School - an American school situated even higher up - and applied for a job as a teacher. I did this partly because if I got it, I could easily bring one of my co-teachers down to visit my 'relatives' and partly because I wanted to see whether cutting short my academic career had greatly affected my competitiveness on the job-market. I had an interview with the vice-principal and I didn't get offered the job!

So I returned to Saharanpur, spent another night there and then returned the next day to Delhi. I went to Kale Khan as instructed where Farooq me the next morning and took me for the first time to Shah 'saab's' hideout. It was between Jamia Masjid and Turkman Gate. I told him that I had had no success with Richard and that I was fed up this friendship business - especially with a house in the middle of nowhere like that and that we stop wasting time and grab whoever we needed. He told me to be patient - he was just in the process of purchasing a van (I mentioned that we could have borrowed one a long time ago) and in any case, he was waiting for the reports of the other channels before he made a final decision.

We finally came to a conclusion. I was to have one final thrust at befriending foreigners and if there was no result by the end of four days, we would carry out the snatch option.

So, next morning I left. I went by cycle rickshaw to Turkman Gate and took an autorickshaw to Paharganj. There I checked in at Ankur Guest House (I can't remember by what name but I said I was from Bombay). I sat around at the four or five cafes in that stretch, slowly sipping or eating something and gradually developed a knack for opening up conversations. I would introduce myself as an Indian-blooded British national who was thrilled to come to India for the first time since he had left as a child. Then I would go on to tell them that my uncle had died and because of some grievance against his son, he had left his village on my name. Given that the feudal system had died out in India for a long time - it seems amazing that the story was greeted with such credible enthusiasm but the newly-arrived traveller to India yearns to hear extraordinary stories which will increase his insight into this strange and colourful culture.

I made several acquaintances and convinced a British chap called Trevor to come to the village after a few days. But the strongest friendship by far was with Rhys Partridge and Graham Fox - we had many common interests like chess, travelling and writing. Both were fascinated by the village phenomenon.

On 28th, I went to meet Sultan as planned at Tilak Bridge. This is the first time I saw the van and driver - which Sultan had brought with him. We sat inside and drove off to a car park where Shah saab and Carrie joined us. We drove around and picked up Farooq somewhere and then went to some lawns. We prayed. The driver didn’t pray - this made me suspicious. What was he? Then we sat down and I excitedly told them I had two chaps ready, the story I had told them, and the acting which would have to be done by my companions.

Shah saab then detailed the procedure. He said that Sultan would accompany us and once we got to Saharanpur, he would be in charge and I was not to interfere in the chaining up of the hostages. Then we made a collective prayer for the success of the operation. When I went to meet Graham and Rhys at the restaurant, I was a bit taken aback because Graham’s girl friend Kate had come and she thought she was coming the next day also. I’d later, when I was playing chess with Rhys, mentioned that the village elders might not appreciate a girl accompanying us.

He must have passed on the message - because next morning Graham said that he was sorry - he and Kate had changed their mind. After taking Rhys to the Saharanpur house, I started explaining to him the facts of life. I told him that I was a revolutionary and was here in India for a specific purpose and I wanted him to help me in that purpose. He asked what I meant. I said I wanted him to be our guest while we negotiated with the British and Indian Governments. I was trembling at that moment.

In a short time it was probably the strongest friendship I had made for a long time (there is a great difference between comradeship and friendship) and all of a sudden the reality hit me. 'If this is a joke,' he said angrily, 'It’s a very poor one. I get very upset at these things.'

The aggressiveness towards me made it a lot easier. ‘‘I’ll show it’s not a joke,’’ I said simply. 'Come in you guys.' And in rushed the three - Sultan, Sid and Sal - brandishing the two pistols. Sultan growled, 'You are under arrest.' Sid and Sal said, 'Hands up.' 'All right, all right,' said Rhys. He looked at me and said, 'Can I buy my way out of this.'

I started explaining gently that he hadn’t understood the situation but Sultan cut me short. It wasn’t until Rhys’ ankle had been chained and Sultan had left that I got a chance to explain to Rhys what was going on. I assured him that he was not in any danger unless he tried to escape.

Naturally, though, he was still very scared. I took his passport details and left the next morning for Delhi. Next morning Amin came to me and said Shah saab would meet me in Nizamuddin Markaz in an hour’s time. He asked me, 'Has the work been done?' I said, 'Yes, it has.' In the meeting, Shah saab ticked me off saying I should have replied, 'What work?' and shrugged my shoulders. Though I never really agreed with Shah saab’s way of doing things - I thought all this hush-hush nonsense was unnecessary - I thought that Shah saab cared about me, almost in a fatherly way.

The hunt for an American Shah saab’s next instruction was to hunt down an American. I set off for YMCA. By evening I had established rapport with a chap I thought to be American and had told him about my village when to my annoyance, I found out he was German. I was about to leave when an American joined in the conversation.

The American had been teaching English voluntarily and was leaving India because of lack of funds. I turned to him and said, Hey, I needed someone to teach English at my village school. He was happy at the prospect especially since I mentioned monetary consideration but said he had a few things to do in Delhi first. I arranged to meet him a couple of days hence and confirm the details.

When I spoke again to the American whose name was Daniel Skinner, he agreed to accompany me the next day. So the next morning, round about the 5th October, I told Shah saab at the Markaz about the developments. He was pleased. He told me to return to the Markaz at 1 p.m. where Amin would be waiting for me. He said he himself would make his way to Saharanpur and wait for us.

At 1 p.m therefore I made my way to the Markaz from where Amin took me to the van. We made our way to the YMCA. I got off and told the driver to return in half an hour. When Daniel and I came out complete with Daniel’s luggage, the driver took a good 15 minutes to come. He was alone. We sat down and started off for Saharanpur, but before an hour had passed Dan asked to get off for cigarettes.

We stopped the car and he got off with his bags and said he thought he’d better stay in Delhi for a few days more. 'What’s the matter?' I asked in a surprised tone. 'I’ve only known you two days,' he said. 'And all of a sudden I’m in a car with you.'

I told the driver that we had changed our programme and that I would go to Saharanpur alone. He was surprised and asked why but I carefully hushed him up. The words 'I’ve only known you two days and all of a sudden...' were ringing in my ears and I became paranoid that the driver was an agent of the enemy.

It was a tense remainder of a journey. When we got to Saharanpur, we parked the car and made our way by rickshaw to the house. I would have told the driver to stay and wait in the van but he was very ill. When we got to the house and knocked, Siddique opened the door and respectfully bowed. I slapped his head and said ‘Don’t bother. I got him to open the front room door and took the driver in. And he immediately lay down on the rug. Then I went inside.

Shah saab was alone. 'What happened,' he asked. I told him. To my surprise he started laughing. 'Bachoo, you must have said something to him to make him suspicious,' he said. 'Well, you just have to get another.'

I told him also what I suspected of the driver. At that he was impatient and said that he knew what he was doing - did I take him for a fool? I went to talk to Rhys after that. He had calmed down considerably. I told him about the American and he was pleased that someone had outsmarted me.

I went around this time to the universities. I went to the international student house of Delhi university with no luck. At JNU, however, after much wandering about, I learnt of an American by the name of Michael living in Vasant Kunj. I went to the apartment he was sharing with four others but he had gone away on a trip. I took the phone number. I went back to YMCA to see if Daniel Skinner was still there. But he had left and so had most of the other foreigners there.

Back therefore to Pahargunj - but Swiss, Dutch, Australian, Canadian... not one single American! I told Shah saab that I had combed the whole of Delhi. He said, OK, more Britishers or a Frenchman would do. So, reluctantly, back to Pahargunj. And who should I bump into but ole Graham. He asked me how it had all been and I said terrific, Rhys had thoroughly enjoyed himself and was now in Manali. And ironically, it was Graham who introduced to me later in the Hare Krishna restaurant to Paul Rideout and Christopher Morston.

I didn’t have to go through the old village story because Graham told it for me. We played a game of chess and I offered Paul and Chris, who had just arrived in India, to take them to see the Red Fort.

We went, the three of us, and when we got there, there was a festival going on, the one with the big icons. I managed to take them right through the VIP section and they were thrilled as well as convinced that I was from a well-connected Indian family.

That night we arranged to meet the next evening at Hare Krishna. Next morning I told Shah saab at the Markaz that I had two Britishers on the pipeline, did he want them? He answered affirmatively and we arranged to meet next morning when I would hopefully have made the arrangements.

That evening I went to Hare Krishna restaurant, met the two guys and casually mentioned I was going down to my village the next day, would they be interested in accompanying me? They agreed and I arranged to meet them the next morning in the hotel they were staying at (the name of which I can't remember). So next morning, at the Markaz I told Shah saab and he had the van arranged in a couple of hours. We met at the petrol pump behind the Markaz and set off. The van parked outside Delhi Railway Station and I went inside to fetch the two guys, guitars and all. So we set off to Saharanpur, the two, the driver and myself and it was almost exactly like the first time (with Rhys) except that I didn't talk about revolutions on the way - we discussed more complicated issues like women.

At Saharanpur, the door was opened by Siddique. He saw that I was accompanied by two guests and so he immediately called the others to attention telling them the Maharaja was here. There was Sultan, Salahuddin and Maulana saab. The same drama as before happened except that this time there was an AK-47 in the picture - brandished by Sultan. I don't know how it got there. The two were shocked to see Rhys, who we'd talked about on the way. Rhys was rather pleased that he was no longer alone.

Next day, after taking their passport details and reassuring them as best as I could, I returned to Delhi. I met Shah saab that evening at the Markaz and informed him of what had happened. He said that I should make one last thrust for an American. He told me that he'd arranged a house in Ghaziabad (near Delhi) and so it should be easier for me. I told him I'd go the next morning to Vasant Kunj and check out Michael. Our meeting was fixed for the following afternoon.

Next morning, 18th October, I popped down to Vasant Kunj and this time managed to go inside the apartment and met Michael. He was a mousish sort of chap and I perceived that it would be virtually impossible to convince him to go anywhere.

So, when I met Shah saab I requested him that we could only do a grab-job on Michael. He said that I would first have to do a complete reconnaisance, which included observing the Vasant Kunj area at different times. We decided Amin would meet me that evening and take me to the Vasant Kunj area on the motorbike.

After the meeting, I went down to the Paharganj area. My mind was fixed on the Michael-task so I didn't try terribly hard to browse round the foreigners there. I just sat at a cafe opposite the Ankur Guest House and ordered a drink. The person in front of me started talking to me and with a shock I realised he was American.

This was Bela Nuss. He was staying at Ajay Guest House and was about to leave India. He was a lonely sort of fellow who found in me someone he could talk to. I told him I was staying at Galaxy Guest House and after the conversation in which we agreed to meet later, I went and booked a room at Galaxy under the name of Rohit Sharma from Bombay.

In the evening, I met Amin at the Markaz and he had with him the motorbike. We went to Vasant Kunj and I noted down what was going on and also the nearest police staton. I decided that morning was a better time for the job. I returned to Paharganj to find that Bela had left a message for me saying that we should meet the next day in the afternoon.

Next morning, I made my way to the Markaz and told Shah saab that we could postpone the Michael programme since I had another in prospect. In the afternoon, I met Bela and we went and had dinner at some pizza place in Connaught Place. I told him I was having dinner at an Indian family's house the next day and asked him whether he'd like to come along. He was delighted.

Next day I met Shah saab at the Markaz. He took me for the first time to the room in Nizamuddin behind the tomb. Farooq and Amin were present. Amin was sent to get dinner. I let Shah saab know that the chap was set up for that evening. Shah saab then sent Farooz to buy a burqa. He told me that I had to put it on the American since there would a check-post on the way to the house in Ghaziabad.

I slept for a few hours while Shah saab and Farooq went and made arrangements. They were going to lock me inside but I promised I wouldn't leave the house. When Shah saab returned, he said the driver would be there in a couple of hours. He had decided that he and Siddique would be involved as well - they would thumb a lift on the way.

I checked out of Galaxy, taking the one small bag I had left there with me and went to find Bela. On the way to Ghaziabad, Salahuddin talked respectfully to both of us. Shah saab and Siddique were waiting on some fast road. The van stopped and they got in. I told Bela that they just wanted a lift to little way ahead. All of a sudden, I felt terribly embarrassed and asked Shah saab in Hindi to kidnap me also. He replied, ?iNakhare na karoh?r (Don't kick up a fuss). Soon Bela realised that we were leaving the city and voiced his thoughts. Shah saab pulled out a pistol with a silencer and looked at him the way a cat does a mouse. I held his hands and gave him the ``everything will be OK'' speech. Siddique went to the back compartment and slipped the burqa on him. Shah saab was still not satisfied, so Siddique gagged his mouth. Shah saab told the driver to drive faster.

On Shah saab's instructions, Salahuddin got off and a few seconds later, the van did a U-turn and went in a lane and drove into the gates of a house. Shah saab said ``Hurry up''. We got off. Bela was hustled into the room on the right and Siddique chained his ankle

Next morning (October 21, 1994) I met Shah saab at his place as instructed. He said he had contacted Pakistan and had asked for money to be sent before the declaration was made so that if things got rough we wouldn't have to start needing to look for money before we made our escape. But he said we needed to plan our letters so he sent me to find out contact addresses and numbers for the prime minister, various ministries, the BBC, Voice of America and the embassies of the USA and UK.

The BBC and VOA contacts were easy enough. I obtained them from the British and American embassies, respectively. The others I had a bit of trouble with but finally found a shop in Connaught Place called Capital News Agency and obtained a good deal of more potentially useful information besides.

I had only just obtained the information when Shah saab said he had got news that Rhys had tried to escape and the guys up there were alarmed. He said that the two of us should go there and talk to the foreigners and our comrades. So we set off from the Nizamuddin house - round about 23rd of October. We went by autorickshaw somewhere I can't remember but there were a lot of taxis standing there. We booked an Ambassador taxi for Saharanpur, paying Rs 800 at the counter and arrived there in the evening. At the house, there was Sultan, Maulana Sahib, Osman and a chap I'd never seen before whom we referred to Khan saab. Khan saab said ``I've heard a lot about you, Lahoiya', and I went on to gather he was from Faisalabad, a city near Lahore, and that he'd been called down from Kashmir.''

Shah saab veiled himself and the two of us went to the Britishers where I translated for Shah saab as he told them that we were not far off from our goals and they had no need to be afraid because we would free them whether or not our aims were met through them. He stipulated a maximum time period of one month. Next morning, Shah saab said we were to go back. I made a face, saying it was a waste of a journey. Shah saab said OK, I would do a little job while I was here. He told me to go to Chandigarh and find out the name and address of the owner of Piccadilly Hotel, saying that it was a VIP and we should turn our attention to such in case the pressure from the hostage factor was insufficient. I asked where the hotel was and he gave me a name and telephone number (some `Muzaffar') to contact when I got there and ask the whereabouts of the hotel if I had trouble getting there. I was about to set off when I had a good idea: I borrowed Paul's India guidebook.

So I went to Chandigarh by bus, falling asleep on the way and forgetting to purchase a bus ticket - resulting in a fine.

I stayed at the Piccadilly Hotel that night. There was an American there but I didn't manage to get acquainted with him. I stayed under my own name as a British national since the pretext I used to get the address was that we were a London-based family wanting to book the whole hotel for a wedding. Next day I toured round Chandigarh because I thought I might as well travel at night-time.

I returned to Delhi early morning and returned to Shah saab's place. He said we could write the letters now. It was 25th October. Shah saab dictated what he wanted and I put it into English. We decided between us that it would be best if we only wrote to the prime minister. I had the prime minister's office phone number and address; I popped down to Bhogal, telephoned and obtained the fax no. By afternoon I had written out three letters - one to fax and the other two to send by post. Apart from the three (Masood Azhar, Nasrullah Khan, Sajjad Afghani), whose release I had been working for all the way from Pakistan, Shah saab added three more names. I asked why. He said if we had only these three names it would be obvious who we were. It would be to our advantage to keep the authorities guessing.

Looking at the letters, I thought the same could be sent without having done any kidnappings at all. I remembered the Beirut hostages incidents some years back and how pictures of the hostages with newspapers in the background used to be issued. So I suggested to Shah saab that we do the same. He asked where we'd get the film developed. I told him about the polaroid camera. He agreed, gave me Rs 5000 and and said I should set out to Saharanpur after bringing back the photos - and come straight back.

I bought a polaroid camera at a shop in Palika Bazar and the film of 10 shots each. I set off for Saharanpur by bus - which broke down on the way. It was about 2 a.m. when I arrived. Luckily there was a festival going on in a temple near Katha-Kheri so cycle-rickshaws were still running.

I went to the house and told the guys there that I had come to take photographs. Some hours later, after sunrise, Maulana saab went and bought a newspaper. Him and Khan saab stood in the background, veiled, with the newspaper and AK-47. Sultan took the photos - six of them.

I went back by train and arrived at Shah saab's house absolutely exhausted. Farooq was there with him. He told Farooq to take the camera to Ghaziabad and get the same of the American.

I had slept a few hours when Farooq returned with the photos. Shah saab and I then sat down to make adjustments to the letters for the photos. Our deadline was 72 hours, starting from midnight (26th October).

I went off to Kashmiri Gate and speed-posted one letter. Then I went to Daryaganj and faxed another, asking the owner of the shop to turn his back since the contents were confidential.

Next day, I went with Farooq and posted the remaining letter from Connaught Place. Then I returned to Shah saab's. It was going to be a waiting game, said the Big Man. I was forbidden from leaving the house so I settled myself down to catch up with my Arabic.

For the next couple of days, I stayed with Shah saab. Farooq had gone off somewhere. Amin was with us and would do errands like fetch dinner, etc. Each morning Shah saab went off and came back saying that he had phoned Pakistan and the comrades were still not freed. On the 29th he said that the threat would have to carried out, so I wrote out the letter to the BBC, VOA, Hindustan Times and British and American embassies. Shah saab added some more names to confuse the authorities even more. Next day, which was a Sunday, Shah saab instructed me to go to Meerut and post them (in case the authorities put watchers at Kashmere Gate and Connaught Place). I was on the way to ISBT when I decided it wasn't worth wasting all that time so I got off at Kashmere Gate, took a quick look around to see if any security zones were there, went in and hurriedly got the letters posted all except the ones to the BBC and the HT - since Shah saab and I had agreed they should be hand posted in case the authorities are watching the post at the press organisations.

Next morning, I set off with the last two letters. At Shah saab's instruction, Amin was behind me watching to see if everything went OK. I went to Nizamuddin East but found that the BBC office had moved. A chap there gave me the new address: Rafique Marg. So off I went, Amin behind me, and gave the letter to the rather nice girl at the reception. `Tell the Editor I want an answer by 3 p.m'', I said thinking tonight she'll be telling the whole world that this big, monstrous, terrorist-looking chap came to me in person and...Tomorrow I'll ring her up and say `Actually, my dear, I'm not like that at all...

I left the building speedily and went to Hindustan Times in K G Marg. I found my way to the Chief Editor's office - he wasn't there himself so I gave the letter to his public relations manager and asked him to give it to him. To my consternation, he started opening it. I speedily withdrew from the room and ran down the stairs (I only just refrained myself from sliding down the banister!) and out of the entrance and across the traffic-jammed road where Amin was. We got into a rickshaw and I told him to go to Oklha since Shah saab had instructed me to go to my Okhla hideout and show it to Amin also. On the way, when we got to Nizamuddin, I espied Siddique. So we got off, greeted Siddique and the three of us got on a bus for Okhla. I went to that place in Haji colony which I'd had for over a month but had hardly used. Amin left, Siddique stayed.

For my part, I thought, it was finally over, success or failure lay with Him above. Siddique and I wandered about the nearby roads and talked philosophically and not so philosophically. We talked about Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bosnia, and England. We talked about Shah saab and the other comrades and the great days we had had in India, the jokes that would be remembered for years to come. He told me about the girl back home he was engaged to, I told him about the one I wasn't engaged to. We talked about the comrades who were getting free any day now...and what they'd be likely to do next. So evening came.

It was just after sunset that Shah saab and Amin arrived. Shah saab told us to get ready. Amin left, Shah saab then said that the American had stopped eating and that we were to go and convince him that it was a matter of a few days only.

We left the boarding house and went towards Jamia. Shah-saab asked me as we walked whether everything had gone all right and I replied in the affirmative.

(We boarded a bus for Okhla) and at 9 0'clock, we got off on the main road and had turned into the lane that takes us to the house when two armed policemen came towards me and asked gruffly who we were and where were we going. I thought it was a routine patrol and asked what the matter was. The policeman swore at me and tried to drag me to one side by the collar, at which I (got) furious and started hitting him. The next thing I remember, I felt a stinging blow on my back and I looked around to see the other swinging his rifle at me - the comrades had disappeared. I turned towards him and BANG!

I feel the anger being drawn out with the blood. I thought it was the end.

It was the end...of one era and the beginning of another.

INSIDE AFGHANISTAN:
Defection of key men eats into Taliban's defences

Mark Franchetti, 30 miles north of Kabul

FOR five years a young warlord maintained the allegiance of his 40 commanders and 1,000 men to the Taliban despite his creeping disillusionment with a regime characterised by mass detentions, public hangings and the stoning of adulterers and thieves.

Not until his own brother was picked out for summary injustice did Nuridin Akhmadi finally resolve to break the bond.

It happened on a summer's day when two Taliban militiamen swaggered into the Akhmadi family's home town in search of young conscripts to bolster their forces on the front line of a brutal civil war against the rebels of the Northern Alliance.

Mohsen Akhmadi, the warlord's elder brother and a hardened mujaheddin fighter in his own right, with long experience of fighting the Soviet forces which invaded Afghanistan in 1979, intervened to help a group of young men confronted by the press-gang. As he argued for their freedom, one of the militiamen pointed a Kalashnikov at him and opened fire. Two of the men also died in the hail of bullets; the rest were taken away, never to be seen again.

"At first I believed in the Taliban," said Akhmadi, 29, who marched for two hours over a mountain to establish radio contact with The Sunday Times. "I thought of them as true Muslims, religious leaders who could never be corrupted - who would strive to banish the mistakes of the past.

"But then the repression began. It has not taken long to understand that these are dictators. The last thing they want to do is rebuild Afghanistan."

Last Sunday, weeks of covert communications with the Northern Alliance culminated in Akhmadi's defection, just as American and British missiles began to rain down on Afghanistan. As the first Taliban leader to switch sides in the current conflict, Akhmadi has assumed an importance he could never have envisaged amid the shifting alliances and betrayals that are customary among Afghan warlords.

Not only did he hand over control of the Taliban's most critical north-to-south supply route near Bamiyan, where the destruction of two ancient giant Buddhas earlier this year provoked international outrage, but he also raised hopes in Washington and London that other significant defections might follow, causing the regime that protects Osama Bin Laden to crumble.

Akhmadi also delivered a crucial boost to the morale of rebels preparing for an offensive that may come this week against government lines north of Kabul, the capital.

Northern Alliance commanders indicated yesterday that they would be ready to strike as early as Wednesday night. Plans have been laid for attacks on three sides of Kabul, to be spearheaded by six generals. The aim, well-informed sources said, is to surround the city, then send in an initial force of 3,000 men to seize control of whatever is left of its infrastructure.

There were visibly more Northern Alliance troops on the streets of towns north of Kabul this weekend. Groups of fighters armed with Kalashnikovs and grenade-launchers were crammed into trucks heading towards the front line, alongside the occasional armoured personnel carrier.

On the outskirts of Golbahar, a market town about 30 miles from Kabul, builders worked frantically to improvise an airstrip ordered by General Besmala Khan, commander of the frontline forces and a former close aide to Ahmed Shah Masood, the Northern Alliance leader assassinated last month.

"We were told by our generals to expect movement within the next three days," said Abdullah Rakhim, a senior commander. The alliance wanted America to bomb Taliban lines, but would move towards Kabul even if the US provided no help, he said.

"All we are waiting for is the command and we will attack," said Akhmadi. "The Taliban are feeling the heat. There is nothing they can do about the airstrikes and they know the world is against them.

"They know that more and more people like me have now turned against them. There is a high chance of anti-Taliban uprisings, and there is nothing they can do about that, either."

The role of defectors such as Akhmadi could be decisive, and the Northern Alliance is doing everything it can to facilitate them. When Akhmadi first made contact with Ustad Ata Mohammad, the rebel commander who had been his enemy during five years of fighting, the response was understandably circumspect.

But trust was built up through messages delivered by hand across the front line and through coded radio exchanges. It took Akhmadi three months in all to secure a guarantee that his men would not face retribution.

Similar negotiations are now said to be under way with other commanders. In desolate villages where former neighbours have battled against one another since the Taliban seized power in 1996, elders exploit breaks in exchanges of rocket fire to cross the minefields at night and deliver notes from those willing to defect but anxious for guarantees of safety.

"Mainly these are people who supported the Taliban, but now see that their time has come, so they are jumping ship," said a Northern Alliance spy who returned last week from Kabul.

"We know most of them personally. They are Afghan commanders who supported the Taliban for money or ideology. Now they don't want to be on the losing side."

Military observers draw a startling parallel between the struggles for control of Afghanistan and a national sport called bazhuki, in which horsemen with whips fight over the carcass of a headless goat: it is a dirty, debilitating game and the prize has seen better days.

Last week Haji Almaz, a senior Northern Alliance commander near Kabul, knelt on a carpet and constructed intricate lines of almonds and chickpeas to illustrate how the rebels would grab the capital back from the Taliban.

"Defections are vital," he declared. "When the moment comes, the defectors will be in place with their troops behind Taliban lines. This way, we will attack from the front and the rear, squeezing the Taliban in a pincer movement. They will have no way out."

A NATION ON THE MOVE:
Exodus tears families apart

Jon Swain, Peshawar

IT WAS a mother's ultimate nightmare. As the Afghan capital of Kabul shuddered with American bombing last week a 28-year-old woman cowered with her terrified children, agonising over which of them to take to the safety of Pakistan and which to leave behind.

Farouzan has eight children. She could afford to save only five. Her house had burnt down and she was almost penniless; the only money she had had been set aside for her ageing mother's funeral.

In the end, she asked her mother to make the unbearable choice for her. "Take the younger ones, they cannot run fast from the bombs," her mother told her.

The next day she left her husband holding her older boys, Kanshji, 14, Ramin, 13, Baktash, 10, and, using the funeral money, paid smugglers to bring her five youngest children with her. "We were all crying when we left Kabul," she said.

Even before America began its bombing, Afghanistan was a lost country. But the air assault is causing much additional suffering, according to refugees' accounts.

Although the American and British governments assert that civilians are not being targeted, the bombing is forcing terrible choices on Afghan families already uprooted by violent conflicts of the past. Brothers and sisters have been separated. Food is in such short supply that, in some cases, daughters have been sold.

Pitiful stories come tumbling out from cracked lips, amid sobs and tears. Kari Abdul Satar, a 25-year-old teacher, watched helplessly as three children died in intense heat on their flight to escape the air assault. One was his only child, a one-year-old son.

All his family had to eat on their trek from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif was dried bread. Others have survived on grass and bark. Some have died eating poisonous roots.

For Hanasea Akbar, of Kabul, the first she knew that the Americans were bombing Taliban targets last Monday was when her house shook and metal tore through the room. "Everything around us turned to hell," she said. "I could hear people screaming in their houses."

As the cargo of high explosives crashed on the district of Bebe Mharo near the airport, Akbar, 28, took her nine children, all under 11, down to the basement. "Please, Mama, take us away from here. We are going to die," they cried.

Five days earlier, Taliban fighters had kidnapped Shamazoud, her husband. They beat her and took him away, presumably to fight with the radical Islamic movement.

The bombing, she said, was the final straw. The next day, she learnt that 17 people had been killed in the raids. After selling her bed, rug and radio for 5,000 rupees (£55), she set out on the arduous journey to the Pakistani border. After two days and two nights without food, she reached a refugee camp. Yesterday, she wondered whether she would ever see Shamazoud again. But at least her children were safe.

Shiasta, another refugee, rode in an overcrowded truck from Jalalabad, a ride so bumpy that people broke arms and legs in the crush.

Anticipating many casualties, the four main hospitals in Peshawar have prepared hundreds of beds. So far just a few are occupied - one by Mujawar Abdul Karim, the lone survivor of an American bombing raid that killed four Afghan United Nations workers with a mine-clearing programme near Kabul.

The incredible technology of American airpower, with its cruise missiles, smart bombs and guidance systems, has undoubtedly limited civilian deaths. But the reality on the ground is still desperate.

The Taliban say that at least 300 civilians were killed last week and hundreds of houses destroyed in Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad. Survivors at Kouram, a village near Jalalabad that was reported by the Taliban to have been hit on Thursday, with claims of up to 100 dead, gathered in the bombed-out mosque on Friday and criticised the air drops of food rations at the same time as bombs as hypocrisy.

There has been no independent verification of the Kouram incident, but, whatever the truth, a mixture of poor intelligence and near misses seems to be the main cause of any errors.

Yesterday, a Kabul resident reached by telephone said the Americans had bombed a Soviet-era camp south of Kabul that had been used as an Arab militant training camp, but not for six years. Another camp, near the Pakistani border, had also been bombed on Wednesday, although the militants had left long ago.

International aid organisations have derided the American food drops as meaningless. "You are shooting with one hand while offering aid with the other. It really is a bit much," said Jean-Hervé Bradol, the president of France's Médecins sans Frontières.

Planes had dropped 37,500 high-protein food rations during the first night of bombing - enough to meet 0.1% of the country's daily needs at a time when 3m are critically in need of food and winter is weeks away. The rations are too rich for Afghans used to a meagre diet of bread and rice.

As more casualties trickled into Peshawar yesterday, doctors were fighting for the life of Ramzan Mohammad, 30, hit by shrapnel from a cruise missile on Sunday as he passed Jalalabad airport on his way home from work.

Lying flat on his back under a thin sheet, his upper limbs moved a fraction. But his spinal cord is shattered, and if he lives, it will be as a paraplegic.

Additional reporting: Eliza Griswold

AFTER THE TALIBAN
US scrambles to find Kabul's next strongman

Tony Allen-Mills, Washington

THERE is a lamppost in Kabul that once bore grisly testimony to the perils of ruling Afghanistan. In 1996 the Taliban came for Muhammad Najibullah, the former president. They tore him from his Kabul refuge, beat and castrated him, murdered his brother and hoisted the remains outside the presidential palace.

The thousands of Afghans who flocked to view the bodies were reminded after 20 years of civil war that Kabul is the cruellest of capitals, as unforgiving of failed leaders as it is hostile to invaders.

Last week, as American and British bombs dropped on yet another ruined Kabul regime, the job once held by Najibullah seemed certain to fall vacant again. Amid growing fears that the ruling Taliban regime might collapse, leaving a perilous power vacuum, Washington planners were belatedly scrambling to answer a question that experts in London and elsewhere have worried about for weeks: after the Taliban, who next?

The search for an alternative to Islamic fundamentalist mayhem is almost as daunting as the hunt for the mountain hideout of Osama Bin Laden.

Almost five weeks of debate and negotiation have yielded no more than a shaky framework for a possible successor. So limited has been the political progress, and so complex the tribal, military, religious and economic interests involved, that Washington and London are said to have slowed the assault on Kabul to leave the Taliban in power until agreement is reached on a viable alternative government.

After weeks of reluctance to be involved in Afghan nation-building, President George W Bush has acknowledged that America "should not just simply leave [Afghanistan] after a military objective has been achieved". In his first confirmation that the allies are considering a peace-making role, Bush added: "It would be a useful function for the United Nations to take over the so-called nation building - I would call it the stabilisation of a future government."

As part of a series of initiatives to reassure coalition partners that the country will not be abandoned to chaos, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, reappointed Lakhdar Brahimi, an Algerian, as his special envoy for Afghanistan, and American officials have plans for a supreme council of 120 delegates from the main Afghan ethnic groups.

Bush said America did not intend to impose a regime, but promised that Washington would remain engaged "to make sure all interested parties have an opportunity to be part of a new government".

Yet senior American officials accept that the attractiveness on paper of an international plan bears little relation to the rivalries and ambitions of warring factions on the ground. It has scarcely helped that the one man who might have emerged with the political authority, military record and charisma to stamp some order on a post-Taliban landscape was murdered by Bin Laden's cohorts days before the September 11 attacks.

Ahmed Shah Masood, the "Lion of the Panjshir", headed the rebel Northern Alliance which during the 1990s fought the Taliban as aggressively as it had battled Soviet invaders a decade before. Masood's death not only robbed the rebel movement of its most impressive general: it also damaged the political credibility of an alliance of quarrelsome Tajik, Uzbek and Shi'ite Muslim factions.

Masood's military successor, General Mohammed Fahim, is given little chance of holding his forces together for long. "He is a bulldog, not a lion," said one diplomat.

Nor is the alliance's political leader, Berhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik, remembered with much enthusiasm. As Najibullah's successor and the last Afghan president before the Taliban took over five years ago, he presided over a bloody shambles. So anarchic was his rule that even Afghans wary of the Taliban's extremism initially welcomed a regime which by comparison was a model of calm.

Complicating all this are Pakistan's ties to the Taliban. Preoccupied by its war with India over Kashmir, Islamabad has long sought friendly relations with Kabul for fear of being squeezed between two hostile neighbours.

General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, bowed to American pressure for military assistance, but warned Washington not to support the Northern Alliance as a replacement for the Taliban.Worried that a Taliban defeat might ignite a fundamentalist backlash at home, Pakistan is playing a delicate double game. It has opened its doors to American forces targeting Bin Laden and the Taliban; but it also appears determined to preserve a role for the Pashtuns, the tribe that bred the Taliban and opposes the rebels.

The Northern Alliance says Islamabad uses Pashtun chiefs to preserve its influence. Needing co-operation on both sides, Washington is waging a covert battle to persuade key Pashtun leaders to "peel off" from the Taliban. Last week CIA operatives were said to be offering large sums to defecting Pashtun leaders.

With America torn between the military advantages of allying with the north and the diplomatic niceties of appeasing the south, many Afghan exiles and western officials have been looking to Rome, where Mohammed Zahir Shah,Afghanistan's former king, is a possible figurehead.

Zahir, 86, has offered to convene Afghan elders representing all tribal, religious and political groups - possibly even elements of the defeated Taliban - to discuss the future. American officials say such an initiative might for practical reasons have to be preceded by a smaller, more manageable council of perhaps 120 delegates, with 50 from the Northern Alliance.

The notion that the exiled monarch might return after 28 years to preside over a new age of tranquillity appeals to many Afghans. Downing Street says it "would not oppose" his return to power.

Yet the king commands no forces, would be an obvious assassination target and might quickly be seen as a puppet of the Americans. At the same time Niamat Arghandabi, a leading exile in London, warns that there are few left in Afghanistan with the political and bureaucratic skills to form a secular government.

A defeated Taliban could wage guerrilla war against a replacement regime. Despite Bush's enthusiasm for political stability in Kabul, few American officials believe their troops will stay long to protect a compromise government. Bombing Afghanistan has begun to look easy compared to replacing a poisonous regime. It may not be long before another Afghan president is strung up in Kabul.

PAKISTAN'S MILITANT CLERICS:
Mullahs spread the gospel of hate

Michael Sheridan, Islamabad

FOR a dangerous man, Mullah Hafiz Nasir speaks in a gentle, modulated tone. But his message of holy war is enough to chill most moderate Pakistanis. It is a proclamation so strident that the government is frantically trying to suppress it in the local press.

Nasir says that every leading Muslim cleric in Pakistan has subscribed to a fatwa, or religious decree, announcing a jihad against American and British military personnel and interests everywhere they can be found. The government can ban mention of it in the media, he says, but it is being disseminated from every mosque in the country.

Nasir is the Punjab regional commander of an extremist group known as the Soldiers of the Companions of the Prophet, one of a host of armed militant organisations in this nation of 140m people.

Funded from Saudi Arabia, it is known chiefly for its violent sectarian attacks on Pakistan's minority Shi'ite community, a group that Nasir and his acolytes do not consider to be true Muslims.

Keeping one step ahead of the authorities, who began a round-up of militants last week, Nasir agreed to be interviewed in a hotel room. He declined to be photographed.

As he smoked cigarettes and sipped water, he explained that mass demonstrations last Friday, in which tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against the bombardment of fellow Muslims in Afghanistan, were just the beginning of a campaign against the military government of General Pervez Musharraf.

"The demonstrations are an expression of a point of view and will not just remain demonstrations," he said. "The announcement of a jihad has been made, and now that jihad has been declared it is the first duty for any Muslim. A fatwa to this effect has been issued by the high commands of all the religious parties."

Nasir said the edict extended beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan to "wherever in the world the Muslims are suffering at the hands of powers like the Americans and the British.

"Whenever you see an American or British soldier in Muslim lands, they are to be killed. Now a war has been declared against Islam, ours is a war against non-Muslims, especially Jews and Christians."

Nasir added politely that this did not apply to journalists working in Pakistan or, he claimed, to other civilians.

He said, however, that Islamic organisations from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia had agreed to co-ordinate bringing the message of the fatwa to their congregations or members. "According to both the Koran and the Sunna, once a fatwa is given it applies to every single Muslim wherever they are," he explained.

Pakistan is awash with weapons and explosives, a Kalashnikov culture that is the consequence of 20 years of contamination by the violent politics of Afghanistan. Last week police seized 2,746 grenades in a raid on a house in Landikotal, near Peshawar, foiling a plan to carry them into Pakistani cities.

The security forces have stood nervously by as mass rallies along the border in Waziristan and Baluchistan brought thousands onto the streets. In the port of Karachi, the nation's commercial capital, Abdullah Shah Mazhar, a former leader of the militant Jaish-e-Mohammed (Soldiers of the Prophet) group, led 5,000 followers in an "oath of death" to launch suicide attacks against the United States and "infidel" forces.

In the Northwest Frontier province, a grand jirga, or council, of 18 frontier tribes resolved to send fighters to join the jihad in Afghanistan. Maulvi Mohammad Ahad, a local religious scholar, said 1,000 men had already left the Orakzai tribal agency carrying rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-mounted missiles. Another 1,000 were expected to go this weekend.

Emotions are running so high that the Pentagon has scaled down its plans to use airfields and ports in the country. The first reliable eyewitness accounts emerged last week of American transport aircraft and helicopters using the airfields of Jacobabad and Pasni, both of which were shut to civilian traffic.

In a show of imposing order, the army came on to the streets in Islamabad, erecting sandbagged emplacements around government buildings. "Stern action will be taken against any person involved in law-breaking activities," said Musharraf. The Pakistani leader staged a swift purge of senior officers, changing all eight corps commanders and removing General Mahmoud Ahmed, head of the shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

He was said to have fallen foul of Musharraf by insisting that he alone lead negotiations with the Taliban to avert war, a fruitless effort that failed to get results. Mahmoud, who was close to the Taliban, is also said to have refused to help a CIA plan to subvert the Taliban by bribing local commanders to desert.

The Pakistani government, which faces a direct threat from the extremist religious parties, insists that they represent only a small minority. But the tensions of recent weeks have brought resentments to the surface.

The mullahs are already convinced that ultimate victory is theirs. "The government is backing the attacks [on Afghanistan], but the people are not," said Nasir. "The real jihad has not begun yet. And jihad doesn't mean do or die. Jihad means do and die."

LIBERAL DILEMMA:
Harold and the Hampstead militia come out fighting

A A Gill

WE CAN only dimly begin to imagine the consternation that must have seeped into the dank caves of the Khyber Pass as the dread news spread from breathless mouth to unbelieving ear: "Brothers, all is lost; the great game is up. Harold Pinter has written a letter to The Daily Telegraph supporting us. Oh, disaster. Can it be long before we are merely liberal statistics buried in the sand?"

Pinter and a rent-a-sob of Hampstead spear-carriers signed the now traditional letter to the broadsheets. "Stop this war!" it squealed. There's no need to quote more. Pinter must have them printed up like At Home cards with just the names of the victims left blank.

The literati of the left are having a thin and confusing time of this war. It's not a contest they'd have chosen. Before September 11, the Taliban had a full house of odiousness: my dear, they even blow up art. But after the atrocity, the left's dilemma was palpable: we simply, simply couldn't support the Americans, let alone Republican Americans.

The New Statesman, the organ of record for fraternal guilt and self-abasement, sought the views of prominent and thoughtful left-leaning intellectuals.

Johnny Vaughan (don't ask me - I didn't make up the list) said: "I do think Bush has overreacted terribly," and then suggested the old Daily Mail favourite: "Send in the SAS."

Tom Paulin sucked his teeth and came up with: "I'm in favour of the symbolic notion of dropping food parcels on Afghanistan." Notional food parcels? John Mortimer rather gave up - "There is no real solution" - but felt that the most important thing was to improve our intelligence network and security service. Ah yes, a bigger, better Okrana.

Corin Redgrave bizarrely insisted on an end to immigration restrictions for Afghans. Rosie Boycott took a firmer view: "The world must pull together." Pull what, Rosie?

Mark Thomas (a comedian) wanted to take terrorists to court - a popular left-wing option, though nobody seems to be volunteering to deliver the summons personally. Bruce Kent got round this by suggesting that Bin Laden "be tried in absentia". Ooh, that'll show him. And to prove that CND's gloves were off, he went on: "I would even go as far as combing through their bank accounts." That far, Bruce, really?

Claire Rayner, a professional agony aunt, authoritatively wrote: "Jumping up and down waving sabres won't resolve a thing." A point I'm sure the joint chiefs of staff will take to heart: "No jumping up and down, chaps, and sheathe those sabres."

Jon Snow insisted: "There has to be a complete re-evaluation of how the world ticks." And how do you evaluate a tick, Jon?

The people who have got into the worst tizzy are the why-oh-why women. The ever-absurd Polly Toynbee has been writing densely impenetrable on-the-other-handish arguments, trying to square the circle of the right of Muslims to be Islamic and the right of western liberals to insist they adhere to the Islington standard of table manners.

Suzanne Moore said women are generally more opposed to war than men because they can think two things at once, and then wailed that there must be a third way. As if keeping two things in your head weren't enough.

The vast majority of left-wing columnists wisely decided not to take on the massively superior forces of justice, but played their old game of historical hit-and-run relativism. Madly totting up death tolls from other theatres that could be placed at America's door, they sought to prove that America attacked itself.

The sight of B52s in action again sent John Pilger into a dribbling reverie. He mumbled happily about the great days of the Vietnam war, picking over mounds of corpses contentedly. I suppose if you hang around long enough, all wars get to look the same.

Many of the columnistas trooped up to Camden for a meeting of media workers against the war, where they loudly accused most other journalists of craven imbecility for reporting what people said instead of taking the tough independent route of trawling for facts to fit their own opinions.

In all fairness, it must be said that the right has not exactly covered itself in journalistic glory, reverting to a salivating fascination for the minutiae of military hardware. Jane's fighting armchairs have been busy at the typeface.

The most ardent rightwingers have found their extreme libertarianism has got them into strange company. Freddy Forsyth (the Pinter of the right) fumed that invading a sovereign country was illegal.Even our own Captain Mainwaring, Jeremy Clarkson, found himself in almost full agreement with The Guardian's editorial page.

But we expect the right to be eye-rollingly weird. It's seeing the left twist and squirm in the coils of its own contradictions that's the most fun. In the last issue of the New Statesman, among all the hand-wringing and mud-slinging there was one glorious double page that both spoke reams and was beyond comment: an advertisement for a warplane, the new Boeing Joint Strike Fighter.

"The Boeing JSF is Britain's best fighter solution, pound for pound," it said. In other words: money talks, bullshit writes.

• Rented relationships: alliances formed because of bribes not beliefs
• Mission creep: you're sent out on exercises in the Omani desert, you end up invading Iraq
• Coercive diplomacy: As President Roosevelt said 'speak softly and carry a big stick'
• Gravity extraction (described by the military as 'the process by which cargoes leave aircraft by their own weight'): ie, dropping bombs
• Target famine: what President Bush meant when he said I'm not gonna fire a $2m missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt'
• AOS: abbreviation for 'all options stink'
• Collateral damage: innocent civilians killed

This page needs to be continued to a next page because these articles are all strung together. Please click anywhere on this paragraph to go there.