PETER SNOW:                And I'm joined by Professor 
Fred Halliday, who knows the area very well. It's not surprising people 
are saying this could be the most difficult war for half a century. It's 
hard enough to pin down and weaken the enemy on the ground in Afghanistan 
and it's proving very difficult to construct a government in waiting to 
take over if the Taliban can be defeated.

                        Now let's look at a broad-brush 
map of the ethnic pattern of Afghanistan and I may say, even this, simplifies 
it, it shows eight areas where one group or another predominates. The Pashtun 
in the south, where the Taliban are strong, representing half of the population 
of the whole country, the Pashtun. But the Northern Alliance draws its 
strength from quite different ethnic groups like the Uzbeks and the Tajiks 
up here.    

                        Afghanistan's historic 
disunity is now giving the diplomats nightmares.  Focus on just two attempts 
to get people round the table; up here in Tajikistan, Russia's President 
Putin was having talks earlier in the week. He sat down with the Northern 
Alliance leader Hemet Rasmahudin (phon) Rabbani and he agreed to give him 
tanks and guns and both of them made it clear that no Taliban elements 
should be included in any future government. This is also the view of Iran 
over here, so we can put Iran's flag broadly speaking up there with the 
Northern group there. Now down here in Pakistan, another group met last 
week, mainly southern groups under Sayed Ahmed Gailani meeting there actually 
in Peshawar and they made it clear they wouldn't accept the Northern Alliance 
playing a dominant role in a new Afghan government at all; they back the 
idea of Zahir Shah, the former King of Afghanistan playing a central role.
                        Now the British and Americans, 
very much forming a consultation group down here, heavily consulting all 
the parties, they also believe there may be a role for the King, Zahir 
Shah but they insist any government must be broad based and cannot be dominated 
by the Northern Alliance, or indeed by the Southerners. It'll all be down 
to the United Nations' special representative to try and get some sort 
of framework agreed that can win the ascent of all the parties. You can 
see just how difficult it's going to be. Professor Halliday, is there way 
there can be any kind of coming together of all these rival views?

PROFESSOR FRED HALLIDAY:        Well at the moment the Afghan 
groups are waiting to see what happens. No-one is going to put their cards 
on the table until they see whether the Americans and the British are really 
serious about getting rid of the Taliban. I think that accounts for the 
halting noises we heard out of Peshawar last week from the Pashtun groups. 
The Northern Alliance would like a share in the government, they don't 
want to control it, but I think the broader issue is whether the regional 
states, particularly Iran and Pakistan can agree, because at the core of 
the fighting of the last ten years, there's been a rivalry between Iran 
and Pakistan and Pakistan set up the Taliban in part to attack and get 
rid of Iran's friends. Iran's friends are the Northern Alliance. Now what 
Iran is now saying to the Northern Alliance, do what you're told, they 
basically said to the Northern Alliance, do what the Americans tell you, 
go into a coalition, the Pakistanis are saying we're going to find good 
Taliban, or good Pashtuns, the Iranians say they don't quite believe them, 
but let them try, so if these two outside powers, Iran and Pakistan can 
collaborate at a time when there's an opening in Kabul, there's some chance 
and I would say that I've got the highest regard for the UN negotiator, 
Mr Brahimi, I've known him for thirty years, since he came here in 1971 
as Ambassador of Algeria. He was involved in negotiations in the nineties, 
I had him into LSE where I teach in 1999, he said we won't get any peace 
in Afghanistan until the neighbours agree. Now if he's taken on the job 
again, which he has, because he resigned, it means he must think the neighbours 
may agree this time. That's an opportunity, I wouldn't say more than that.

SNOW:                    You know Afghanistan, you've 
been there a number of times, what do you think is actually going on inside 
the Taliban controlled area. We don't know because very few journalists 
get in there. Do you think the Taliban are weakening or not.

HALLIDAY:                    We do know much more 
about what's happening in the Taliban areas than we did, say about Iraq 
during the Gulf War, because it is not a sealed place, people are on their 
mobiles, people are coming backwards and forwards, we know roughly what's 
happening. The Taliban are digging in, they're extremely tough, they've 
received tens of thousands of volunteers from Pakistan and Arabs who've 
come through Dubai in the Gulf to Islamabad and then being bused up over 
the border, they're not going to give up lightly.

SNOW:                    How far do you think the 
air-strikes and the battering of the buildings we've seen, how far do you 
think that is bothering them?

HALLIDAY:                    Hardly at all. I think 
to be honest, I think it's the phoney war. The real war will come when 
people go in and try and capture airfields, or capture urban places, try 
and establish a terrain that they control and it's quite clear that the 
ground strategy would involve taking bits of territory and then building 
up from there.

SNOW:                    Fred Halliday, thank you 
very much. John.