Unease on the streets of Kabul

The Northern Alliance presence is increasingly evident

		Nick Childs BBC foreign affairs correspondent

The underlying mood in Kabul is still that the Bonn talks are inching towards some sort of agreement and that the international community will lean on the different factions sufficiently to win acceptance on a compromise deal on an interim administration.

But there is also a recognition that this would be just the first step towards what most people here want - a loya jirga, or grand council - the best hope, as they see it, of a say in Afghanistan's future.

Kabulis fear more 1990s style fighting

Expressions of relief from many ordinary Kabulis that the Taleban have gone are matched in some cases with hints of distrust about the leaders of the factions who have taken over.

There has been concern about the role of the head of the Northern Alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who has remained in Kabul.

People here remember the factional fighting when he was last in charge in Kabul in the mid-1990s.

Factional fighting

But the Northern Alliance's Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, has insisted once more that his group is willing to hand over power to a UN-sponsored interim administration, albeit that he expects the Northern Alliance to play a significant part in it.

The United Nations is trying to achieve now, in days, what it has previously failed to achieve in years of talks.

Abdullah: Power will be handed over to an interim administration

But there is a growing sense that time is short, if a descent into the destructive factionalism of the past is to be avoided.

On the surface, life in the capital goes on normally, although against the background of food shortages and the legacy of decades of devastation.

But, already, the forces of the group in charge in Kabul are more and more in evidence on the streets, incidents of theft and intimidation are mounting, and a sense of unease is growing.

Gunmen on the streets

As one drives around town, the little knots of gunmen in their irregular camouflage outfits are more common than they were just a few days ago.

In Bonn, one of the key issues under discussion is the establishment of an international force to provide security in and around Kabul under an interim administration.

The Northern Alliance is lukewarm about the idea.

Mr Abdullah insists the group is willing to be flexible on the question of such a force. But just how flexible remains unclear.

The formula being proposed would reportedly require the withdrawal of factional forces from the capital.

Whether or not that is feasible, it is what most people here feel is the only real hope for a stable future.