In The Line Of Fire

The gunman stood sentry near the gates of the compound, waiting for an opening as the departing motorcade approached. Inside a luxury suv was Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, who had come to Kandahar to attend his brother's wedding. His security detail, a clutch of U.S. commandos, rode in a separate vehicle. Karzai was on his way out of the compound of Gul Agha Sherzai, Kandahar's provincial governor, who sat beside him in the car, when he was approached by an Afghan youth hoping to meet the President. A leader known for his affability, Karzai lowered the window to shake the young man's hand.

As he did so, the gunman, Abdul Rahman, 22, who was part of Sherzai's security detail, raised his weapon and pumped several rounds into the car. Amazingly, Karzai managed to duck the bullets. One grazed Sherzai's neck, and another struck a U.S. soldier. A nearby youth, 19, by some accounts the one who had moved forward to greet Karzai, shoved Rahman to the ground. The U.S. commandos then bounded out of their vehicle and opened fire. Rahman, the youth and an Afghan bodyguard died in the fusillade. Back in Kabul that night, Karzai seemed unfazed by his brush with death but aware that it probably will not be his last. "I'm fine," he said. "I expect things like this to happen."

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It is a reasonable expectation. Only hours before the attempt on Karzai last Thursday, a bomb planted in a taxi detonated on one of Kabul's busiest downtown streets, killing 32 and injuring at least 150. Government investigators said they had no evidence that the attacks were coordinated, but many Afghans had their suspicions. The blast in Kabul last week, the most lethal in a rash of bombings this summer, came after weeks of intelligence warnings about the likelihood of terrorist attacks around the anniversary of Sept. 11. Although U.S. commanders say the 12,000 allied troops in Afghanistan have flushed nearly all remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban forces out of their redoubts and degraded the enemy to a few hundred fighters, the country still seethes with militants intent on destroying the Karzai government and attacking the Western soldiers who back it. A senior Afghan official says the government's opponents have begun a new phase of more brazen, "open" terror attacks.

While Afghanistan has no shortage of warlords looking to make their mark, the possibility that the Kabul blast was linked to the attempt on Karzai suggests the work of a coordinated network. Karzai said Rahman was "definitely a member of al-Qaeda." But government authorities believe that Osama bin Laden's decimated forces in Afghanistan are not acting alone. Afghan intelligence officials say al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters have forged links with guerrillas loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the ruthless former Prime Minister who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in 1996. Afghan and Western officials believe that since slipping back into the country from Iran early this year, Hekmatyar has sent aides to meet with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives in the eastern city of Khost and in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan. The fear is that Hekmatyar has begun providing al-Qaeda's shock troops with the direction they have lacked since bin Laden went to ground. Says a senior Afghan intelligence official: "Hekmatyar's terrorist experience within Afghanistan is greater than al-Qaeda's."

Early this month Hekmatyar declared jihad against Karzai's U.S. allies. Afghan intelligence officials say he has been spotted in Helmand province the Taliban-friendly region that produced Rahman, who joined Sherzai's guard about two weeks before trying to assassinate Karzai. After the shooting, police and military officers in Kandahar detained 17 Rahman associates for questioning, according to Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for Sherzai. "Once the interrogations and investigations are completed," says Pashtoon, "Hekmatyar's name will be mentioned." Some Afghan leaders believe that Hekmatyar's re-emergence has been facilitated by outsiders eager to destabilize the Western-friendly government in Kabul. Possible troublemakers include Iran's hard-line security forces and the pro-Taliban officers in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (isi), which supported Hekmatyar during the 1980s.

Eliminating violent opponents remains a huge challenge for Karzai. The U.S. is training a professional Afghan security force that it hopes can bring the whole country under control, but that goal is a long way off. Lately the Bush Administration has been suggesting that it is willing to support an expansion of the 5,000-member international peacekeeping force now policing Kabul so it can be deployed beyond the capital, but Washington has no intention of taking the lead. At the same time, President Bush has sought to reassure allies that the U.S. military will not abandon Afghanistan, even with the hunt for bin Laden slowing and a showdown with Iraq looming. "We're not leaving," he said.

In the short term, the most critical mission for the U.S. military may be the one it helped perform in Kandahar last week keeping Karzai alive. Two Afghan Cabinet ministers have been assassinated this year, and several others, including Karzai, have survived attempts. Given the country's ethnic rivalries and chronic warlordism, the loss of Karzai a popular member of the majority Pashtuns could send Afghanistan reeling back toward the chaos that bin Laden found so hospitable. "Karzai has no real power base of his own," says a diplomat in Kabul. "But as a Pashtun leader who has earned real respect in Afghanistan and internationally, he is close to irreplaceable. His loss would be a catastrophe." With each day, it is one that is getting harder to prevent.