International aid, promised back in December 2001, was supposed to begin restoring Afghanistan's devastated infrastructure, boost its economy, provide for emergency humanitarian needs and calm ethnic and political tensions -- in a word, rebuild it. But there is little evidence of much nation-building here. A few weeks ago, Kabul's electricity supply was worse than it had been in January. As recently as Sept. 11, 2002, Jalalabad was also without a steady supply of power, with people resorting to generators or simply working in the dark. A drive from Jalalabad to Kabul on Sept. 12 revealed no construction crews visible, no one seriously taking up the cause of public works. The roads had the same number of beggar children as they did in November.

"The distribution of aid has been very inefficient and spent in an ineffective way, and did not create jobs or markets as we expected and did not demobilize the thousands of young people in service to the warlords. This has been a total failure for the reconstruction program," said Daoud Yaar, a lecturer in economics at California State University at Hayward. Hayward is home to a large Pashtun community. Yaar expressed deep concern that if major changes are not made within the current Afghan government and the distribution of aid in Afghanistan, the consequences would be severe. "I'm worried about Karzai, American lives and the future of the country. It could fall back into the hands of fundamentalists. Not the Taliban, but different fundamentalists this time."

Disturbing reports of a rift between Mohammed Fahim, the Tajik defense minister, and Hamid Karzai, who himself is a Pashtun, underline the weakness of the new government. In Kabul, there is open speculation that forces within Karzai's own Cabinet were connected to the assassination of a key Pashtun government minister and Karzai ally, Hajji Qadeer, and possibly other crimes. Many people within the Pashtun community singled out the defense minister as being responsible, although none of them had direct knowledge of any plots. Still, the rumors are not easy to dismiss. The two men have been rivals for at least a decade. Mohammed Fahim was the intelligence chief of the Northern Alliance and has acquired enormous power as the Afghan defense minister. Fahim has also refused to disarm, keeping large weapons caches in the Panjshir Valley.

Karzai, in contrast, has few soldiers under his direct control and has been closely guarded by U.S. personnel since the Sept. 5 attempt on his life. Many Pashtuns feel that Fahim is trying to consolidate his control over the capital, and that some of the violence can be attributed to his political ambitions.

When asked what he thought about the odds for the long-term survival of the Karzai government, Daoud Yaar said, "Everything now depends on how prudent the United States is. If the U.S. succeeds in bringing Fahim over to democracy and creating a better balance and gives the Pashtuns due respect, and then starts massive reconstruction efforts, there is a good chance that Karzai will survive. If the imbalance persists, the warlords will continue to become stronger on a daily basis."

Anyone in Kabul will tell you that Mohammed Fahim, the man at the top of the Northern Alliance pyramid, is the real power in the Afghan government. As defense minister, Fahim controls a large intelligence agency that operates outside the presidential sphere and reportedly answers directly to him. Hamid Karzai's political life, and quite possibly his actual life, depend on limiting Fahim's control over the intelligence agencies and the defense ministry. But his success at this endeavor has been uncertain at best, and he may have to rely on his unpredictable friends in the U.S. government for help. In any system that claims to represent the population of Afghanistan, Pashtuns must make up a larger percentage of government positions than they currently hold, but Fahim's men are Tajiks and the Pashtuns are relegated to other, less influential posts. Any change in the ethnic balance would work against Fahim, so he has resisted it -- a stance that places him at odds with the elected president. And if fighting broke out between forces loyal to Karzai and Fahim, it is warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the other Islamists who would reap the political benefits.

Then there are the unsolved bombings and assassinations that take place with depressing regularity. Spokesmen for the foreign ministry claim that these are all the work of al-Qaida, but it seems much more likely that violent factions within the new government are responsible. And they continue to go unsolved. Just a week before we arrived, on Sept. 5, a large car bomb had detonated in a crowded area of the city, killing 30 people; on the same day, Karzai barely survived an assassination attempt in Kandahar. No one has taken responsibility for either act.

The bitter truth is that the security situation in the capital is worse than it was in January, and this is not purely due to outside forces like al-Qaida or returning Taliban fighters trying to destabilize the new government. The violence is coming from within.

Here's what you learn when you spend time with Pashtuns in Kabul. When Aman Khan and I arrived in the capital on September 12, after driving in from Nangarhar province, it just happened that our cab had Jalalabad plates, and on that afternoon, we were pulled over by soldiers and police and searched five times. It didn't take us long to notice that a pattern was developing. We would drive a block, get stopped, then drive another block, only to go through the whole performance again. The slack-jawed soldiers, on finding out that Aman, my translator and friend, was a Pashtun (they can tell by looking at him), immediately wanted to see the registration papers of the car, hassling him, getting hostile, then searching the car and demanding to see his identification. Aman could do nothing to placate them despite the fact that all his documents were in order, and then, finally, the soldiers told him in no uncertain terms to get out of town. "You see," Aman said to me, "I'm an Afghan and this is how they treat me. There will never be peace in Afghanistan. Never."

A few minutes later, when two young women came up to the car and asked for a ride to Microrayon Four, a nearby neighborhood, Aman told them in Dari that he was sorry, we couldn't take them because he was from Nangarhar and a Pashtun, and the police wouldn't let him move around the city. When he explained it to them, he spoke quietly because he was ashamed. That night, it took four tries to find a hotel that would rent a room to Aman -- the men at the door kept telling him to get lost or quoted stratospheric prices. This happened on one day, an average day, to an educated man and a former soldier who had fought against the Taliban in Nangarhar province. During the war, Aman had distinguished himself by leading the unit that secured the governor's mansion.

Entering Kabul felt like crossing the boundary into a bubble of unreality, a hopeful vision of the way the country could work if everyone pulled together and the aid money was put to proper use. This, of course, was a first impression and it turned out to be dead wrong. I was simply overly impressed by the construction cranes that dotted the horizon.

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