In Hot Pursuit?

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Pentagon officials concede they have little idea how many al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are holed up in Pakistan's tribal areas. "It's somewhere between 500 and 5,000," a U.S. Army officer said in Washington. Identifying the enemy is all the more vexing because the tribespeople aren't always firmly for or against al-Qaeda. The elders go with whoever can help the tribe against traditional foes. "They're not black or white over there," an officer from the Defense Intelligence Agency explains. "A lot of them subcontract to al-Qaeda to smuggle guns or money across the border, but they're not part of al-Qaeda. These folks have been doing this for generations."

The difficulty in differentiating terrorist from tribal smuggler is one reason U.S. forces have refrained from crossing over. Even now, six months into the war on terror, American intelligence in Afghanistan is patchy at best. A diplomat says the U.S. still relies on informants whose main aim is not necessarily to smoke out al-Qaeda but to avenge old tribal vendettas. "Hot pursuit into Pakistan is acceptable if you're sure the bad guys are in your sights," explains a Western diplomat in Islamabad. "But if the Pentagon ends up dropping a bomb on women and kids because of bad intel, the U.S. has blown it with Pakistan."

The terrorist traffic flows both ways. Two weeks ago, U.S. special forces manning checkpoints on the Khost-Gardez road stopped a truck loaded with arms heading into Afghanistan. A week ago, Pakistani soldiers arrested five African men, suspected al-Qaeda members, who were trying to sneak into Afghanistan wearing burkas. In Khost local people speak of "night letters"--reportedly printed in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar--found scattered around the streets with the following warning: "All our Muslim brothers, our enemy is here. Join us now, or you will share their fate."

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, a few are awaiting the second coming of the Taliban. Nial Ahmed sits in a field not far from the U.S. base in Khost. Bearded and wearing his turban battened down Arab-style, Ahmed, 30, proclaims his loyalty to the Taliban. "For now," he says, "we can do little because the pressure of the world is upon us." But, he adds with a glint of hope, "our leaders, our fighters, are safe in Pakistan."