Four questions crop up constantly these days in central Asia. The first is: WHEN WILL THE AMERICANS STRIKE?
Those who believe air strikes are imminent think US retaliation will start as soon as the Secretary of Defence, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, leave central Asia.
Tension rose this week when Pakistan said it was satisfied with evidence against Osama bin Laden and Mr Blair told the House of Commons that bin Laden would have killed 70,000 people rather than 7,000 had he been able to do so. Mr Blair promised that Western forces will destroy bin Laden's weapons. CNN reported that strikes against Taliban aircraft may be necessary to enable humanitarian flights to take place.
Such statements could be intended to prepare public opinion for action, or they may simply be "psy-ops" to wear down the Taliban. Preliminary, half-way strikes run the risk of rallying support around the Taliban and increasing the regime's determination. A prolonged period of threats without action could be more psychologically destabilising.
US strikes could be further away, if Washington wants a political alternative to the Taliban in place before it attacks Mullah Omar's regime. This week's accord between the mainly Tajik United Front and 86-year-old King Zaher Shah is a step in that direction, but it is probably not acceptable to Pakistan and the majority of Afghan Pashtuns.
The United Front recognises that they are not representative of all Afghanis. "We understand that the country does not belong to our party," says Col Saleh Registani, the Front's military attachΘ in Moscow. The front advocates a "loya jirga" or consultative assembly to set up some form of government.
Behind the scenes, the front is negotiating with Taliban commanders, whom they are allegedly trying to buy off with American money. There is a certain irony to this, since many of the tribal commanders were attracted to the Taliban in the mid-1990s by US and Saudi money siphoned through Pakistan.
Switching sides is a tradition in the 23-year-old Afghan war. Col Registani cites Gen Naqibullah, the head of the Taliban air force. "First he was with the communists; then he was with us. Now he's with the Taliban. Maybe he's with the Americans today."
The danger of precipitating a humanitarian disaster is another reason for caution. The US learned from the 1999 Kosovo war, when the Serbs responded to NATO's bombardment with "ethnic cleansing" on a mass scale. UNICEF yesterday pleaded for time to deliver relief supplies to Afghanistan before the winter weather sets in.
Finally, the US cannot act until its military forces are in place. Journalists travelling with Mr Rumsfeld in Uzbekistan were told that 1,000 US troops are on their way to that country. The Pentagon has been far more secretive than in previous wars about the state of deployment - secrecy made easier by the isolation of former Soviet bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Air strikes would require the presence of helicopters pre-positioned near Afghanistan's borders, to rescue pilots in the event that they are shot down.
How will they do it? Indiscriminate bombardment of Afghan cities is not an option. A ground offensive is unlikely for several reasons. It would require the presence of US troops in Pakistan, which could create unrest there. There would be high civilian casualties if the US entered cities against resistance, and that could increase support for the Taliban.
If the US conquered Afghanistan by land, it would then be expected to reconstruct an Afghan state - the sort of responsibility it shirked in Iraq in 1991.
"A ground intervention would be foolish and unlikely," says Mr Anthony Davis of Jane's Defence Weekly. "It doesn't make any sense - any government that emerged would be seen as a US puppet."
That means the coming offensive against Bin Laden and the Taliban is likely to be mainly air strikes, possibly combined with airborne commando raids. The first target will be the Taliban's air force of fewer than 10 Su-22 ground attack fighters, about five MiG 21 fighters, less than a dozen transport and attack helicopters and a few fixed wing transport aircraft.
Once the US is satisfied that it has wiped out most of these aircraft, it is expected to declare a "no-fly zone" over Afghanistan patrolled by US attack fighters. Any Taliban armour left out in the open will also be targeted, but most are obsolete Soviet stock and will not be priorities. Taliban training camps and barracks were probably vacated around September 11th, so there is not much point bombing them.
The US may use the United Front for intelligence information on the disposition of Taliban forces, or as guides for commandos. But the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directive (ISI) is likely to be better informed about the Pashtun heartland in the south.
After it creates a no-fly zone, the US would like the United Front to cut the country into sections by seizing strategic roads. The front has already cut one main north-south road, by holding the Salong Tunnel. Gen Rashid Dustom is fighting in the central Samangan pocket to cut the highway connecting Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, but the Taliban have repeatedly used their air force to bombard his forces. If Dustom succeeds - and if Taliban air traffic is stopped - the regime will have have to rely on a long circuitous route to the west of the country to resupply the north. The hope is that the Taliban in the north would simply give up.
It is not clear how hard the Taliban will fight. They have their strongest support in Kandahar and the surrounding southern region. The Pakistanis claim the Taliban have Scud missiles which they might fire at neighbours helping the US, or at zones controlled by the United Front.
What happens after the war? A recent report by the International Crisis Group concludes that "any military action by the US-led anti-terrorism coalition in or from the region needs to be accompanied by concerted, long-term efforts to stabilise Central A sia politically and economically."
Afghanistan has never existed as a nation-state, says a European diplomat. "It has always been on a tribal basis, with unclear boundaries in the south and millions of Pashtuns moving back and forth across the border every year with their herds."
The northern Tajiks were originally Persians; the southern Pashtuns originally Indian Muslims. Add 11 other ethnic groups, most of whom feel the pull of their own neighbouring state, and you have the makings of unending civil war.
A whole generation of Afghans has known only war, and the country's economy is based on heroin trafficking. The hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Afghanistan pledged by the UN, US and Britain this week could be the beginning of a long and costly commitment.
There will be a temptation for the US to leave the failed Afghan state in the UN's lap - which may explain why the US finally paid 10 years back UN dues after the September 11th attacks. In a recent report on UN Peace Operations, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi - just named UN Special Representative for Afghanistan -- said the UN should not automatically be involved in all crises, especially if member states are not willing to give enough money, personnel and peacekeeping forces.
There are already 800,000 internally displaced people inside Afghanistan, and humanitarian relief groups fear a large increase in their numbers more than an exodus of refugees. If the US does not control the situation on the ground, it could be difficult or impossible to deliver aid. Parachuting is an expensive and unreliable method.
Relief workers based in Tajikistan are already planning to go into Afghanistan as soon as it is safe to do so. "It will depend how fast the front line moves across the north," says Mr Paul Handley of the British medical relief group, Merlin. "The Taliban have a history of slashing and burning and punishing suspect villages."
What will happen to Osama Bin Laden? It all depends on the Taliban movement, which is composed of three elements: ethnic Pashtuns, the ex-Khalq ("masses") faction of the Afghan Communist Party and up to 7,000 foreigners who are personally loyal to Bin Laden. The last named include 3,000 Arabs, most of the others being Asian Muslims.
The Arabs are Bin Laden's pretorian guard, the most likely to fight to the death for him. "Afghans are a lot more survival-oriented and pragmatic than the Arabs," says a European diplomat. "They change sides."
Bin Laden knows Afghanistan's history well enough to know that leaders are often betrayed and murdered. Daoud Khan, who overthrew his cousin King Zaher Shah in 1973, was shot in his palace with his family in 1973. He was replaced by President Nur Mohammed Taraki, killed in fighting in 1979.
Taraki's successor, Hafizullah Amin, was smothered with a pillow by the Soviets. The last communist president, Mohammed Najibullah, was hanged by the Taliban when they came to power in 1996.
Then there was Ahmed Shah Massoud, murdered by two of Bin Laden's followers with a booby-trapped television camera last month.