Habib Rahman arrived at sunset on an ancient lorry, loaded down with sacks of tea and sugar, Pepsi and juice cartons made in Pakistan. As dozens of exhausted men rolled off the precious cargo and began haggling with shop-owners, the 35-year-old merchant told me of his four-day visit to Kabul, and the perils of shipping food from the Taliban zone to the "liberated" but isolated enclave. About 150 ethnic Tajiks, traders and refugees leave the predominantly Pashtun Afghan capital daily.
They congregate before dawn at the former bus station at Kule Mahmoud Khan and travel by car to Nejrab, 50 km to the northeast. At Nejrab, Taliban fighters with the accent of Kandahar - Mullah Omar's stronghold - often seize merchandise and extort money from travellers. At the mountain top town of Giova - renowned for its bandits - Rahman put 2,000 kilos of supplies on the backs of 52 donkeys for the trek to Durnama, where the merchandise was reloaded onto trucks for the last stretch into Golbahar.
The entire journey took two days, but it is profitable. The only access to the enclave controlled by the United Front also known as the Northern Alliance is from Tajikistan to the north - a one-week road journey, impossible because of snow between November and July - or through the Taliban front lines.
The civilians of Kabul are caught between the Taliban and the US bombardments. "The Taliban go into houses and put anti-aircraft artillery on the roofs. Then the US bombs the buildings," Rahman explained. "Because of that, people are afraid of the bombardments. But they say it is better to be bombed in order to finish with the Taliban." Afghans on both sides of the front line are hoarding food in anticipation of ground fighting.
"Things are getting very scarce in Kabul," Rahman continues. "Before, we bought 12 Pepsi cans for 180 Pakistani rupees. Now they cost 220 rupees."
Rahman began his weekly buying trips between Kabul and Golbahar in 1996, after the Taliban seized the capital. His wife and four children lived with him in Kabul until September 11th. Expecting US retaliation, the merchant brought his family to the relative safety of Golbahar, but continued his own journeys. In the daytime, Taliban fighters swarm through the streets of Kabul, Rahman says. "They are very unhappy.
"If you see them, you have the impression their father has just died. Most of them have taken their families to safety, and they are very harsh with people.
"At night, about a third of the Taliban fighters are thieving. They go to the houses where shopkeepers have stored their supplies. They steal most from the (mainly Tajik) people from the north."
"The Taliban walk around all day," Mohamed Salam, a 20 year-old student, confirmed. "They have no uniforms - just a turban, a waistcoat and a Kalashnikov." Salam says the fighters have stopped taking refuge on frontline positions at Shomali since the US staged a modest attack there at mid-week. "They still leave every night, but nobody knows where they're going." Rahman, the merchant, shares the widespread belief that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden have gone to Pakistan. No one in the capital sleeps through the night, he says, because bombing stops and starts every few hours. There has been no radio or television since the US bombed transmitting stations.
Salam, the student, fled with his widowed mother, brother and six sisters soon after the bombardment started. He left his family with relatives in Golbahar, then returned to their house in Kabul to collect belongings. Salam paid 400,000 afghanis - ten Irish pounds - to a smuggler to get him across the lines, and was able to make the journey in only 12 hours. Salam's house is near Taliban army post number 315 in the Kabul neighbourhood of Panjshiwatt. Salam packed his family's clothes and took whatever food they'd left. He entrusted furniture and other belongings to cousins, so the house would not be looted.
Each time American aircraft approached the city, Salam said, "the Taliban ran into houses around the position." Before dawn on Thursday, just as Salam was preparing to leave for Kule Mahmoud Khan station, an aircraft dropped four bombs on post 315.
The explosions were deafening, Salam said. "They broke all of the windows in our house." His last act before leaving was to look at the burning ruins of the Taliban recruiting station. He saw no bodies. There would have been more Taliban in the building, he says, but many fighters have been redeployed to Khost, where the Taliban expect a US attack. At first light, Salam found a car to take him to Nejrab. "I saw an airplane in the sky, and a big explosion. I think it was near Kabul airport."
Salam is a soft-spoken, slightly built young man with a green turban and a thin goatee beard. "My father was a mujahed. He was with commander Mumtaz on Golbahar mountain.
"The Taliban killed him two years ago." The Shomali plain north of Kabul has been lost to the Taliban and retaken by the United Front three times in five years. "I've come back here because I want to get a gun," Salam says. "I want to take a gun and fight against the enemies who killed my father."