The 10 per cent of Afghanistan in the north-east not under Taliban control is wedge shaped with its point 35 kms from Kabul. From this point in the Shomali Plain, Tajik forces of the Northern Alliance/United Front (NA/UF) routinely fired rockets at the Kabul airport district to the immense chagrin of the Taliban.
Despite their best efforts to conquer this area, the late legendary Tajik commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, frustrated their annual push against him and caused them heavy casualties. He told the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA) that the only obstacle taking Kabul was the lack of tanks and armoured personnel carriers to fight across the open ground and also the need to silence Taliban artillery on the Koh-i-Sati hills dominating the plain.
Masood was assassinated on September 9th while giving a television in his headquarters at Khwaja Bahauddin. Two Algerians masquerading as journalists detonated a bomb hidden in their camera killing Masood, an aid/interpreter, the two bombers and wounding Masood Khalili, the NA/UF ambassador to India.
This is believed to have been bin Laden's present to the Taliban. Their nemesis - and last obstacle to the total control of Afghanistan - had been removed.
The attack on the US changed all that and begs the question: Did bin Laden plan both attacks?
But that's another story. This past week's US air strikes have given new life to the NA/UF. Masood's successor, Gen Fahim, his former second-in-command and intelligence chief, is regarded as a competent military commander and while not as creative as his former leader, can be expected to follow Masood's tactics. Air-to-ground support by US air power could provide the cover and support he needs to take Kabul.
This is a desirable objective in order to topple the Taliban regime but the aim should not be to replace the Taliban with the NA/UF. The NA/UF has a flawed pedigree that rules it out as a replacement government to the Taliban.
President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik former professor of theology and founder of the moderate Islamic party, Jamiat-i-Islami is recognised by the United Nations as titular president of the Islamic state of Afghanistan.
Masood was his protege and a party member. However it was Masood's charismatic personality which provided the real leadership of the NA/UF when it was founded in 1996. It is an alliance of loosely connected ethnic groups whose only common interest is their loathing of the Pakistani-backed Pashtun-dominated Taliban.
These groups include the former communist Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, leader of the Uzbeks, and Karim Khalili, leader of the Hazara Shi'a in the Central Highlands. They have always had an uneasy relationship and at times have fought each other when their objectives conflicted; ideology gave way to ethnic interest.
In the feudal system which is contemporary Afghanistan, fighters are drawn from rural areas and are frequently tenants of their land-owning commanders. Training is poor and as commanders are independent, command and control is difficult; loyalty can be bought.
Looting is an accepted part of victory as compensation for service and this was manifested in Kabul in 1992-1996 when the Mujahideen factions vied for control and a state of lawlessness prevailed.
In Mazar-i-Sharif a similar pattern of behaviour was evident in 1998 as NA/UF factions fought within the city and its environs.
It is believed the NA/UF now recognises its bad record. They generally practice a moderate type of Islam in which women have access to education up to and including university level.
They will accept a broadly based ethnically representative government, free from outside interference. But this must have Pashtun representation as this group accounts for 40 per cent of the population, and some of these may, of necessity, be Taliban.
Before this can happen, the Taliban must be defeated.
Gen Dostum is leading the fighting in Balsk province and is attempting to take Mazar where the reported US bombing of this important airport would greatly assist him. However the NA/UF can only succeed through defections and this has already happened as commanders along the Salang highway are reported to have changed sides, thus cutting off Taliban supplies to the north. The taking of Kabul is therefore important psychologically to hasten this process. Masood maintained that he had a "fifth column" in Kabul of dissident commanders ready to switch sides when the time and compensation was right.
Now may be the time.
Capt Peadar McElhinney retired from the naval service in 1999 after 40 years service. He served as senior military adviser to the UN Special Mission to Afghanistan from October 1997 to October in 1998.