Fierce tribal loyalties, shifting alliances, convulsive betrayals that leave mountain passes stained with blood and local communities in tatters.

This is why the backdrop to the current American-led military build-up, as crucial as it is, is only part of the story of President Bush's anti-terror campaign.

As troops and technology arrive in South and Central Asia, a quiet yet massive effort is going on to bring change to Afghanistan that doesn't involve smart bombs, air strikes or special force operations.

Pakistani fears

Not much is known for sure, but it seems almost certain that Pakistan is trying feverishly to use its many intelligence and political contacts in the Afghan theatre to minimise damage to its own interests, and perhaps by implication, to Afghanistan itself.

Reports from Islamabad, Tehran, Washington and London speak of a Pakistani attempt to examine alternatives to the current, hard-line leadership of the Taleban.

Some have termed this a "coup" against Mullah Omar, the reclusive and hugely influential Taleban leader.

Others suggest that Pakistan simply wants to ensure that representatives of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, have a central role in the coming transition and future government in the country.

Pashtun links

This would be crucial for stability in Pakistan's own Pashtun-dominated areas, where Taleban successes have been very widely supported for tribal, as well as religious reasons.

The return of Zahir Shah, deposed as king of Afghanistan in 1973, is increasingly being touted as a way to placate Pashtuns and ensure stability.

In the past, Pakistan has not favoured this, something it has signalled decisively over the past 15 years by backing radical Islamic Pashtun leaders like the rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and then the Taleban.

Now with its policy in tatters, the best that Pakistan can hope for is for the Taleban to re-invent itself as a kinder, gentler Islamic movement with Pashtun support and a role in any future administration in Afghanistan.

Some in the Taleban may be involved in a process like this.

Taleban 'moderates'

Pakistan's intelligence agencies are reported in the UK's Guardian newspaper to be encouraging relative "moderates" in the Taleban to seize control from Mullah Omar.

Whether such moderates exist at all, or have enough influence to take over such an ideological movement, remains to be seen.

Hardliners have already been fighting back.

Taleban leaders have been meeting Pashtun tribal leaders from King Zahir Shah's Durrani tribe, from their own Kandahar district of Afghanistan.

They have pledges of support, even of "jihad" (holy war) against America, from some of them.

Taleban emissaries have also sought backing from tribal chiefs in three south-eastern provinces of Afghanistan.

Northern Alliance

Yet on the diplomatic or political level, such developments do not even come close to eclipsing or counterbalancing the agreement announced this week in Rome between the opposition Northern Alliance and allies of the former king.

Assuming this alliance can hold together, it will still need to fortify itself with more Pashtun support from tribal leaders who may nominally support the Taleban, or who stay out of outright backing for any of Afghanistan's warring factions.

This is where Pakistani help and co-operation would be crucial.

More than the government, the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), will have to be onside and co-operating with the international effort to put a stable, friendly government in Afghanistan.

The ISI helped found and nurture the Taleban, supplying and training them at almost every level, according to diplomats, UN officials, commentators and just about anyone who watches Afghan affairs.

In private, Pakistani officials say they are very much prepared to go along with the establishment of a broad-based Afghan government - once military action is over.

But as Afghan history shows very plainly, nothing can be assumed, no agreement cannot be broken, and the unexpected usually occurs.