Northern Afghanistan has been relatively peaceful, but there are increasing signs of trouble--clashes between rival militias, occasional attacks on troops of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF, the UN-sanctioned peacekeeping force), rising banditry.

If the war in the south pits messianic guerrillas against what they see as a sinful puppet government run by foreign infidels, then violence in the north takes on a distinctly ethnic quality, with Uzbeks, Tajiks and others squaring off against the Pashtuns, who once supported the Taliban and oppressed non-Pashtuns. What happens next in the north is a crucial piece of the Afghan puzzle.

We drive to Balkh Province; NATO has recently reported an ambush and firefight in a Pashtun village here. To get safe passage into Pashtun villages, we must find the local Pashtun commander, a former Taliban and mujahedeen landlord named Haji Aktar. Our local Tajik contact is terrified by the idea of approaching Aktar. "The people around here are lawless and wild," he says from the passenger seat. We have traveled a mere five or ten miles from his home, Balkh town, but the man acts like we're in another country.

Eventually we make contact with Haji Aktar and his broodingly handsome son, who is now taking over the family business of, essentially, being the man in charge of the local poppy-farming Pashtuns. We sit on the carpeted veranda of Haji Aktar's adobe qala and look out over the pot fields on the plain that stretches south out of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the base of the blue-gray Hindu Kush mountains. After a lunch of stewed sheep kidneys, okra and greasy rice, Haji Aktar explains why the Pashtun of the north are growing angry. "The government of the north excluded Pashtuns," he says. He is talking about his rival, the Tajik governor, Atta Mohammed. "Every day or two they are searching and raiding the three Pashtun districts. They even arrested me. They came with forty vehicles and three helicopters and took me to [the prison at] Bagram."

Haji Aktar explains how he was handcuffed and blindfolded, while American troops searched his private quarters--"with women and children inside." Being a gracious host, Haji Aktar does not blame the foreigners--my people. Instead he blames Atta Mohammed for setting him up. Haji Aktar claims he is at peace with the government. But one wonders at what point this honor-obsessed feudal landlord will feel compelled to avenge his humiliation.

"I can't think of a bigger insult for a guy like that," booms G. Whitney Azoy, a former US diplomat turned scholar-adventurer, who knows Haji Aktar. In the 1980s Azoy was involved with support for the mujahedeen's US-backed campaign against the Soviets; more recently he worked as a consultant for the military contractor DynCorp and now runs a State Department-funded research center. He is one of the leading authorities on northern Afghanistan. "Nothing--I mean nothing--could be worse for a Pashtun landlord like that. But a guy like Aktar is also very shrewd and patient. He'll wait and watch. But that sort of thing won't be forgotten."

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