Afghans wary of warlord rule

In addition, many shopkeepers complain of being robbed at gunpoint by the new militia soldiers - many of them in their teens.

For their part, the warlords who now rule Jalalabad and Nangarhar say they are doing their best to disarm everyone - including their own militias - and restore peace. Their more-ambitious efforts include a gun-registration program, with the government requiring anyone carrying a weapon - including soldiers - to apply for a license.

It will be no easy feat. In a nation beset by more than two decades of conflict, more Afghan homes have Kalashnikovs than electricity.

"We are trying our best to bring peace, so that no one should feel the need to have a gun," says Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, minister for military operations of Nangarhar Province, who announced the gun-registration plan. "Today, we are starting to control the suburbs, and anyone who has a stolen vehicle from the aid groups or the UN, we will collect them and bring them back to the city."

Mr. Ghamsharik, who spent the past five years of Taliban rule in Dijon, France, knows that many Afghans don't trust their new rulers because of past experience. But he says that he and his fellow warlords have learned from the lessons of the past.

"The things that we did that were good, we will repeat; and the things that were useless, we will not do that again," Ghamsharik says, sitting in a garden with a bubbling fountain - and several hundred armed supporters.

But many citizens say they want more than the assurances of warlords.

"People are happy that the Taliban are gone, but they are not happy if the current situation continues," says Hanif, a tea merchant. "We want UN peacekeepers to come. If the same conditions continue, maybe the people will start an uprising against the government."

At a clinic in downtown Jalalabad, Dr. Muhammad, an obstetrician, says he takes his small ultrasound machine home with him each night, because of "security problems."

"During the Taliban times, there were no security problems. But with these people, we are not sure," says Dr. Muhammad, who does not want to give his family name. "We have no problem with the new government, but these people who came here, they collected all the thieves of Peshawar [Pakistan] and brought them here as soldiers."

His wife, Riaza, says she still wears a burqa - the traditional all-covering veil required by the Taliban - because she doesn't trust the new rulers or their soldiers.

"Sometimes they stop families on the road and say, 'Your wife is nice,' " she says. "We don't feel safe."

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