As a former Islamic guerrilla against the Soviets, Najibullah remembers watching the long lines of Russian tanks, artillery, and disciplined soldiers coming to take over the Konar province.

In 1989, with just a few thousand men armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades, and antiaircraft missiles, he and fellow resistance fighters liberated Konar, the first state to be returned to native Afghan control.

Now the tables have turned. The former rebel is himself in charge of securing the northeastern province, which borders Pakistan, against Islamic guerrillas. But, with a poorly trained force of 1,800 men, and with none of the necessary resources or arms to secure the peace - Najibullah is worried. His men earn just $1 a month - enough for a few rounds of tea - and they haven't been paid in six months. Meanwhile, all around him, in rural areas and border towns, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Islamic guerrillas - from the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and from Afghan religious parties - prepare for their moment to strike.

"How can we defend against this staggering number of enemies?" he says in exasperation. "We can't trust our own men. Somebody could offer them thousands of rupees, and I can only offer them 10. It's possible for even 300 men to take everything from us, not just the city but the province."

About 10 miles south of the province's capital, Asadabad, is a US base manned by Special Forces, estimated to number about 500 soldiers. They conduct joint patrols with local Afghan soldiers, looking for weapons in the homes and properties of supposed Taliban sympathizers, and watching the Afghan-Pakistani border for Al Qaeda infiltrators.

But the real enemy, Afghan officials say, is already within the province. Konar remains a base for the radical Islamist party Hizb-I Islami, led by the anti-Soviet hero Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Afghan intelligence sources say Mr. Hekmatyar, who helped topple the Soviet-backed government in 1992 only to help destroy the country by fighting with rival guerrilla groups for control of Kabul, is now regrouping in Konar and recruiting leading Afghan commanders and political leaders for a coming revolt.

"In this region, Hizb-I Islami is very strong, because the local people fought with Hekmatyar against the Soviets," says Sher Hassan, the local deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence agency Amniat. But Hekmatyar and his party would be nothing without money, he adds, and Amniat believes Hekmatyar is receiving money from "neighboring countries."

"All the bordering countries are interfering in our affairs, sometimes in their own interests and sometimes in the interests of their friends," says Mr. Hassan. "China has always had good relations with Pakistan. All the weapons we used during jihad [the Soviet war] came from China, but they have not given them directly to us. They gave the weapons to Pakistan. Now it is working the same way, with weapons and money going to Hekmatyar.

"They [Hekmatyar and his party] haven't started any big attacks, just some guerrilla attacks on the US base," says Hassan. "But if they are backed by foreign countries, they can do anything, they can even take Konar from us."

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