Checking that the coast is clear of US Apache and Chinook helicopters, Mullah Abdul Rasool, a former Kabul official, rides his motorcycle down to a stream at twilight where he preaches to shepherds in an almond grove. He scoffs at the idea that his conservative Taliban movement is finished.

"We are dangerous people, especially when we see that Islam is in danger," he says, stroking a long, scraggly beard beneath his bleached-white turban. "Our people were happy when we were in power, and they will support our second revolution when it comes."

The guerrillas in this remote border region arrive at night with the sound of a throttle. Mullahs on motorcycles come to preach against the "infidel US and British invaders" and plot their own return to power. Their actions and vows are testimony to US military claims that the war in Afghanistan is going to be a long, drawn-out struggle against the return of Islamic extremism. But as the fight continues, some US allies argue that the tactics of the Western coalition need an overhaul.

The US-led military campaign, assisted by 1,000-strong contingents of British and Canadian troops, is aimed at eviscerating the influence of the Taliban and arresting their senior leaders.

It has been led in Zabul Province by highly mobile teams of US special forces, which sometimes deploy in 17- and 18-strong "A Teams" for several weeks in one spot. But they are more typically found zooming through the dust bowls and mountain passes in their sophisticated flying machines.

Some British officers at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul are now taking issue with the US-led strategy. They say that creating more small bases across Afghanistan's volatile Pashtun tribal belt and melding antiterror activities with a more concerted "hearts and minds" campaign would work better than the often futile fight that is being conducted now.

"Afghanistan presents immense challenges, and it is crucial to dispel the impression that many Afghans have that this is an invading force that engages in hit-and-run operations across the country without reaching out to the population," says Royal Marines Lt.-Col. Ben Curry. "Also, if you are stationed on the ground in villages and towns, it is far easier to pick out the enemy in a crowd."

Despite the campaign, the Taliban hasn't vanished as fast as the world hoped it would. When the fundamentalist regime was forced out of Kabul and then nearby Kandahar last year, thousands of young mullahs fled to Zabul Province, which became a base used to congregate, console, and plot.

Zabul's mullahs also have a haven in neighboring Pakistan, where, local Afghan officials insist, the mosques and madrassahs harbor "foreign fighters," including scores of Arabs loyal to Osama bin Laden. A Saudi newspaper recently published what its editors alleged was an interview from the Pakistani side of the border given by supreme Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

In US military parlance the strategy against the Taliban is called "a light footprint." In this case, it means dropping in and out of the area unexpectedly. "We are not here to hold ground, that is a job for the Afghans themselves," said US Major Bryan Hilferty. "But we try to keep the enemy guessing. They never know when we might drop 800 British Royal Marines on their head or just hammer them with a few Apaches."

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