Kabul

BAGHALAK, Afghanistan - In a three-hour gunbattle, Afghan soldiers cornered and killed 12 fighters believed to be Arab and Pakistani in this rural village on the edge of Kabul yesterday in what appeared to be a chance encounter with remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network trying to flee the area, according to residents and soldiers. Three Afghans also died in the clash, which marked the largest discovery of foreign al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan since Operation Anaconda flushed out hundreds of them in March.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In the Afghan capital's worst unrest since the fall of the Taliban five years ago, Afghan mobs fought running battles yesterday with troops and police trying to quell riots sparked when U.S. military vehicles fled the scene of a fatal accident after hitting civilians. At least eight people were killed and more than 100 injured, most in the rioting that followed an early morning traffic accident involving a convoy of U.S. military vehicles, Afghan officials said. Rioters attacked the offices of the United Nations and foreign aid agencies, stealing computers, books, desks and even shoes.

KABUL, Afghanistan - In this country, even the lion at the zoo has a war story, and it goes like this: In the early 1990s, when rival mujahedeen forces were tearing Kabul apart with bullets and shellfire, a foolhardy warrior decided to prove his lion-hearted nature by getting his picture taken with the real thing. He climbed into the cage, approached the lion and mugged for the camera in a combative pose. The lion ate him for lunch. The next day, an enraged family member came back to settle the score with a rocket-propelled grenade.

KABUL, Afghanistan - It was troubling news from a place with an unfamiliar name. Troops loyal to one of Afghanistan's most powerful and notorious warlords swept into the northern provincial capital of Maymana yesterday, brushing aside security forces of the U.S.-backed central government and forcing the governor to flee. Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum seized control of the city near the Turkmenistan border as more than 600 of his fighters advanced from three directions, said Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials are painting an inspiring vision of an Afghanistan free of terrorists, drug growers and smugglers, safe enough for 5 million refugees to return and peaceful enough not to pose a threat to any of its neighbors in that tinderbox region. That would be a tall order in any underdeveloped country, let alone one ravaged by two decades of war. And the United States could find that its military had an easier time reaching its goal - destroying the Taliban regime and breaking up al-Qaida - than its diplomats will have in nurturing a new, stable Afghan government.

KABUL, Afghanistan - It towers, a fantastic construction of orange-scented cake and buttercream icing, created by four men, including a cake engineer: a 132-pound creation in the shape of a ship, dedicated to Afghanistan's favorite film, Titanic. Although the Taliban had banned films and shut down cinemas when the movie was released in 1997, many people here in the capital watched pirated copies of Titanic at home on illegal videocassette recorders. Here, the movie is considered the greatest romantic adventure of all time, so the unhappy ending notwithstanding, the Titanic makes the perfect wedding cake.

JABAL OS SARAJ, Afghanistan - Each evening just after sundown, convoys of heavily armed Taliban fighters push out of their bases in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and drive to the safest place they know: the front line. Their enemies across the battle line, the Northern Alliance, watch the headlights of trucks and vans pulling up as close as they can get to the front line. In Afghanistan's vicious civil war, the front line might seem an odd place to hide. But to the Taliban fighters defending Kabul, the closer they are to the front line, the farther they are from U.S. missiles raining down on the capital.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Kite-flying has been banned.It is also illegal for the women of Kabul to wash clothes in streams or at pumps outside their family compounds."

UNITED NATIONS - President Bush said last night in New York City that the opposition Northern Alliance in Afghanistan should avoid seizing Kabul, and Pakistan's president warned of civilian atrocities if the alliance did so. Bush said that how the capital fares would send an important signal on whether Afghanistan emerges from the war as a stable and peaceful nation, with all its ethnic groups represented. His statement exposed an ambivalent attitude toward the fighters who are acting as proxy ground troops for the United States in trying to destroy the Taliban regime.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- American airstrikes meant to punish the Taliban spilled over yesterday into residential neighborhoods of the Afghan capital, witnesses said, killing at least 13 civilians -- the second time in as many days that missiles have accidentally hit homes and killed residents. Later yesterday, U.S. jets were back over the skies of the beleaguered Afghan capital, and strong explosions could be heard in the direction of the main road from Kabul to the opposition-controlled Bagram air base.