KARACHI - With most of the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters withdrawing from the mountains of Shahi Kot valley in eastern Paktia province - in the face of intense US and allied opposition - new places have been earmarked for them to continue their fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan.
At the same time, two important leaders of the Afghan resistance movement, Ismail Khan and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - widely accused of harboring elements opposed to the interim administration of Hamid Karzai - have made dramatic reversals of their positions.
Several hundred Taliban and al-Qaeda troops who had occupied caves, tunnels and passes in Shahi Kot and Zarmat near the provincial capital of Gardez have quietly retreated to nearby areas. Their positions had been under heavy attack since March 2 in Operation Anaconda, a joint military offensive involving US and allied forces as well as local Afghan fighters. Out of an initial estimated 1,000 men, several hundred Taliban and al-Qaeda troops are believed to have been killed, with only about 20 captured. The remainder have now departed, much to the frustration of the US.
Their retreat was made possible with the assistance of various local Afghan commanders. There have been unconfirmed reports that they took with them several US soldiers. Their shura (council) has decided, said a source, that the captives would be used as bargaining chips in negotiating the release of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners being held by the US in Gauntanomo bay in Cuba.
The sources said that the Taliban have already regrouped in Gazni, Wardek and Khost provinces to the southeast of the capital Kabul. Although the official administration of these provinces is loyal to the Karzai administration, real control lies in the hands of local commanders who are whole-heartedly with the Taliban.
The inability of the US and allied forces to muster sufficient local Afghans for ground attacks - the allies still rely heavily on air strikes - has raised the morale of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda organization.
And as happens so often in Afghanistan's contorted tribal politics, many local commanders, while apparently in favor of Karzai, are playing it both ways. To save themselves from the wrath of American bombing, and to take advantage of the generous "inducements" offered in the form of hard cash, some commanders participate in the fighting against the Taliban. But due to tribal affiliations and other factors - their close relatives being Taliban - their hearts are not entirely in the struggle. Consequently, as soon as the Taliban appear cornered, they provide a safe passage for retreat.
These switching allegiances make it extremely difficult for the US to push home any ground advantage, but it is a reality that the US will have to deal with in the whole of eastern and southern Afghanistan.
In the broader picture, the same situation exists at the political level. Recently, a former deputy prime minister of Afghanistan and the leader of the Hizb-i-Islami (Gulbuddin group), Qutubuddin Hilal, called a press conference in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar in which he reversed his life-long policies.
He endorsed the loya jirga (grand council) process and the role of the former monarch Zahir Shah in the future of Afghan politics. And the Hizb-i-Islami has filed a law suit against a Western news agency (Reuters) over what it says was a "concocted" interview with Hekmatyar in which he is quoted as appealing to all Afghan factions to wage war against US forces in Afghanistan and the Karzai administration.
At the same time, the legendary commander against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-89) and now the governor of Herat, Ismail Khan, admitted in an interview in a Pakistan newspaper that although he had differences with the Karzai administration, which he had conveyed to Karzai, he would resolve these differences through dialogue, not fighting. At the same time, he urged US forces not to bomb Afghans and demanded a stop to the war in Gardez.
Analysts say that the fresh stance of these prominent Afghans is in fact similar to what the Afghan commanders in Paktia and other places are doing - simply playing a double game to gain breathing space.
At present, many Hizb-i-Islami commanders in Kandahar are hand-in-glove with the Taliban and are working to destabilize the pro-Taliban administration in that province. US forces have acknowledged this fact.
And many strong commanders of the Hizb-i-Islami, such as Juma Khan in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kashmir Khan in the Kunhar valley, are playing a similar game. On the one hand they appear to be a part of the Karzai administration, yet they turn a blind eye to the regrouping of anti-Karzai factions in their areas.
Meanwhile, former monarch Zahir Shah, who was due in Kabul on March 21 to celebrate the Zoastrian New Year, is reported to have postponed his visit due to the uncertain conditions prevailing in Afghanistan.