Room for Shifting Loyalties in a Nation Under Attack

The Taliban commander in Kabul was asking a lot of nervous questions. That’s how the agent from the opposition knew that he had him in the bag.

The agent had been wooing him for more than a year, but it was only after the U.S. threatened to bomb Afghanistan that the commander finally decided to switch sides.

In Afghanistan, shifting alliances between regional warlords have always played a key role in battle. Betrayals, defections, intrigues, promises and payoffs have always decided who wins and who loses, and the war for control of Afghanistan today is no different.

When the Taliban came to power in 1996, its forces swept through the country quickly, often buying off regional warlords, reportedly even using Osama bin Laden’s money at times.

Because commanders bring their men with them, defectors hold the key to entire provinces, strategic roads and supply routes. If the opposition Northern Alliance can attract Taliban defectors to its side, it can win over big chunks of territory without a shot being fired.

The Northern Alliance claims that more than 1,200 Taliban fighters have defected.

Many potential defectors may be waiting to see which way the wind blows, and who emerges as the strongest force.

The Northern Alliance sent one of its agents, Jalil, 50, to woo the Taliban commander, whose name cannot be published because he is still in Taliban-controlled Kabul, the Afghan capital.

Jalil is a mysterious, intriguing figure, looking out narrowly from beneath a black-and-white Afghan head scarf, his eyes flickering sideways, always watching warily.

“He wants to come over to us as soon as possible,” Jalil said of the Taliban commander, who is about 35. “Most of all, he’s afraid of the bombing. The way I realized he was scared was that he was asking too many questions. He’s much more nervous now.”

Jalil, who knows that he risks capture by the Taliban every time he goes to Kabul, last met the commander shortly before the U.S. and Britain launched strikes against Afghanistan on Sunday night.

The Taliban commander used to be one of Gen. Abdul Basir’s subordinates. Basir, 36, is a genial, charismatic opposition commander who rules the Salang Gorge with the paternalism of a feudal warlord. In addition to his men, he has a collection of spies and messengers at his disposal, sent out to gather information and return with reports on what the enemy is up to.

Even when Basir defected to the Northern Alliance several years ago in return for a commander’s rank, he kept in touch with his former subordinate, occasionally paying him for information.

“I sent money for every report and piece of information. Now he’s so scared that I don’t even have to pay money to him,” boasted Basir, seated on a traditional Afghan floor mat, lounging comfortably on a cushion.

He said people such as the commander went over to the Taliban in recent years, often for money, “but in their hearts they are still our people.”

Keeping in Touch With the Other Side

Afghanistan is a country full of spies, agents and messengers. Basir says many other Northern Alliance commanders are wooing their own contacts on the Taliban side.

“There are hundreds of commanders who keep in touch with the other side,” he said. “All the information is accumulated.” It is not clear the extent to which the Northern Alliance shares its intelligence with the U.S.

Though fighting on different sides, Basir and his former subordinate are similar men. The fighters under each commander hail from the same district and thus are deeply loyal. By defecting, the Taliban commander brings with him all his soldiers--about 200 men--to fight for the opposition cause.

Convinced that the Taliban will fall, all the commander wants, Jalil says, is a guarantee that his life will be spared. In return for that promise, Jalil conveyed Basir’s condition: When the Northern Alliance launches an offensive to take Kabul, the commander has to capture as many still-loyal Taliban fighters as possible.

“We’re preparing an insurgency,” said Basir, who spoke to the commander on a satellite phone Tuesday.

He is also courting a second Taliban commander in Kabul who, like Basir, was born in the same tightknit community in the Salang Gorge.

Basir sends a different messenger to that commander and has given him a different task in return for the promise of safety. The commander’s job is to get close to the Taliban leaders and find out their hide-outs and where they deploy their cannons.

“I can rely on him 98% because he’s been in touch with me for five years. He sent me radio messages and letters,” Basir said. “We went to the same school together. He has about 250 to 300 men.”

But a week ago, the second Taliban commander sent a messenger to Basir begging him not to make contact.

“He said: ‘I know what to do. If you send someone to me, it could expose me,’ ” Basir said.

Counting on Support From the Enemy

At times, the boasts of Northern Alliance commanders seem brashly overconfident. For example, Basir claims that his side will be able to count on 3,000 to 4,000 Taliban fighters to raise a rebellion once the opposition attacks. The Taliban is believed to number only 50,000 troops, and that includes 10,000 associated with the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Another Northern Alliance commander, Gen. Bobojan, who is just 500 yards from Taliban positions at the key opposition post of Bagram, says he has informers who scuttle across from Taliban lines, deliver their information and scuttle back before anyone notices.

Gen. Fazel Udin Ayar, chief of police in the front-line town of Charikar, says that a delegation of would-be Taliban defectors from Gorband, west of Charikar, came to town Tuesday seeking a deal.

Their fighters control a road in the Gorband area, about 35 miles northwest of Kabul.

“They are secret talks, but the deal is not yet completed,” the general said Wednesday. “We’ve been in touch with them for quite a while. Their morale is low, and they’re coming to the conclusion that they should come onto our side. But they’re hesitating.”

The spies and covert messengers who cross the front lines know that they are risking their lives, but they shrug off fear. They sneak through the mountain passes at night from one side to the other. There are few phones in Afghanistan, and the safest form of communication is to send a trusted personal messenger.

Sharifullah, 20, a spy for the Northern Alliance, said: “Great Allah guides and protects me. I’m not afraid for my life.”

He makes regular trips to Taliban-controlled territory, where he talks to Taliban officers and wanders around, finding out as much as he can.

Once he was arrested by the Taliban after someone denounced him as a spy, and he was jailed for three days. But he was freed after begging his captors to release him because he is his family’s oldest breadwinner.

To Jalil, the risk is just part of the business of war.

“I say, if I die, I died for freedom,” he said.

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Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report. Dixon and Loiko reported from Afghanistan.