Then and Now

1996: Kabul falls to the Taliban militia, young zealots who thus become the latest masters of a city fought over down the years by so many internal factions and foreign intruders. Their first act is the murder of Najibullah, a former leader of Afghanistan and a Communist, whose body is strung up in the street. The Taliban wants to export its warlike brand of Islam, but it still has many enemies at home. Afghanistan's woes are not over.

1921: With the ending of the Third Afghan War, Britain's long and unhappy involvement with Afghanistan - the playground for the Great Game against Russia - is coming to an end, and London effectively recognises Afghan independence. WK Fraser-Tytler was a young British official caught up in these events of war- and peace-making. Years later, in 1949, long before the latest round of destruction, he looked back on that moment as a missed opportunity: "What a chance presented itself at the end of 1921 when Afghanistan was at length launched on the world as a full-fledged sovereign state, guarded by the jealousies and suspicions no less than by the solemn treaties of her great neighbours! What a chance for a wise administrator who understood not only the temper of his people but also the basic elements of good government! Here was a country and a people wild, savage and untamed, but a country and a people of great potentialities, the people virile, intelligent and ready to learn, the country practically undeveloped but teeming with possibilities for the farmer, the mining expert and the engineer. There was no internal or external debt, the cost of essential services was very small, the requirements of the people very simple. Here was a chance for some wise economic and cultural planning. There were immense obstacles to be faced: the bigotry of the powerful priesthood, the fierce and lawless disposition of the tribes, the intractable nature of the country itself. But these obstacles were there to be faced, the solution of the problem lay in appreciating and surmounting them."