On 20 January, the morning of the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Adha - the celebration of sacrifice - the suicide bomber struck outside the mosque in Sheberghan, northern Afghanistan. Sent by the Taliban, he was dressed as a beggar because on Eid no one should deny a beggar's request. And if, like the intended target, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, you have a following to uphold, it would be very unwise to turn down a beggar on Eid in front of a crowd of hundreds. Only when the beggar started running towards Dostum did the bodyguards become suspicious and kick him to the ground. He blew himself up, injuring 20, but Dostum - who was part of the alliance that overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001 and whose army is accused of leaving prisoners to perish inside sealed steel containers - escaped unscathed.
The attack came at an awkward moment for the now elected president, Hamid Karzai, who is trying to broker a deal with the Taliban and bring an end to their insurgency. It seems that many Taliban militants want to return to a normal life but fear that the US military will still harass them if they lay down their arms.
Days after being confirmed as the election winner, Karzai promised to rein in the warlords. He has, for example, sacked the defence minister, the heavily armed Mohammed Fahim. But this bolder Karzai has brought together warlords who used to be enemies of each other. Dostum and Atta Mohammad have issued a joint demand that the mainly Tajik and Uzbek north be granted autonomy from the centre. Sources say that if Karzai does not offer them anything before the end of winter, they will secede by force. This threat should not be taken lightly. When they were fighting each other - until a ceasefire was agreed in November - the two warlords and their men used tanks and rocket launchers as well as AK-47s.
Yet figures issued by the UN's disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme state that all 6,247 soldiers under the command of Mohammad and Dostum - who were paid by the defence ministry - have been or are being reintegrated into Afghan society well ahead of schedule. Across the country, 35,000 soldiers are receiving vocational training and support in anything from plumbing through agriculture to de-mining. The programme organisers expect to reintegrate all 50,000 soldiers who were on central government payrolls by June. However, the figure does not include the thousands of privately employed militiamen who still hold sway outside Kabul.
The DDR programme also states that it has cantoned nearly 8,000 pieces of heavy weaponry such as missiles, tanks, armoured personnel carriers and antiaircraft guns. In the past fortnight, even Mohammed Fahim's arsenal in the strategically important Panjshir Valley has started to be cantoned. But the programme's initial estimate was that only 4,000 heavy weapons were in circulation.
Afghanistan's warlords may be genuinely participating in disarmament. But after two decades of wars, no one really knows what's out there.
