ISLAMABAD, 13 Nov 2001 (IRIN) - Latest media reports confirm that Northern Alliance forces entered Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and the western city of Herat on Tuesday. Fighting was also reported to be in progress in other cities and regions right across the country, as Taliban forces retreated in the face of a dramatic Northern Alliance advance.

Aid workers have been closely monitoring events in an attempt to determine how the rapid shift in the front lines will affect the supply of vital humanitarian aid. Initial reports, some of which remain unconfirmed, from national staff inside the country indicate deteriorating law and order. From the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, national staff have reported the looting by armed elements of aid agency offices, abductions and kidnappings for ransom.

A Human Rights Watch senior researcher, Peter Bouckaert, told IRIN on Tuesday that the unconfirmed reports from Mazar-e Sharif were alarming. "The next few days will be crucial to see whether the Northern Alliance has improved its human rights behaviour, or whether we are going to see a repeat of what has happened in the past," he said. "This is especially alarming given the backing it has received by the military coalition. If these reports are correct, it shows that there is a lack of control over elements of the Northern Alliance."

The director of the Afghanistan Study Centre, Prof Rasul Amin, told IRIN it was now unclear whether conditions would be favourable for the continuation of relief operations.

Risk of infighting

"Infighting can resume as soon as the Northern Alliance takes Kabul, and it may eventually lead to an all-out civil war," Amin said. The capture of Kabul by the Northern Alliance, itself a shaky grouping of various warring factions, would not necessarily lead to improved security for aid agencies, he warned. One solution was to secure Kabul as an open city, with security provided under a United Nations authority, he added.

One Afghan aid worker, Mohammad Hamzah [name changed], told IRIN that he remained anxious that anarchy would return to the country. "Replacing one gang of war criminals with another is no solution to the Afghan crisis. In Mazar-e Sharif looting has already begun. They are looting mostly humanitarian facilities, such as NGO offices and warehouses. The same may eventually happen in Kabul," he said.

He called on the international community to be vigilant of the prospect that Kabul was now likely to be controlled by a "patchwork of opposing forces", which had only been united while fighting the Taliban.

"The residents of Kabul have bitter memories of infighting among these people, who once again appear prone to such tendencies. [If so], this will prove disastrous for ordinary citizens," he warned, but added that ultimately the people of Afghanistan wanted to remain united.

Hamzah said there were more than 70,000 newly displaced people in eight districts around Kabul, and in the eastern provinces of Lowgar and Paktia, adding that the situation could deteriorate even further if stability was not restored.

Expressing dismay at reports of violations in the wake of the Northern Alliance advance, the aid worker told IRIN that human rights had to be the basis of any future Afghan governance. In the meantime, guaranteed security for aid agencies and their personnel was paramount, he said.

Food deliveries to the north

WFP remained cautious over the implications of the dramatic change in the front lines for its food aid operation. "It's too early to judge how this will affect our strategy. Security is not stable enough to do anything, but that could change in an hour," a WFP spokesman, Khaled Mansour, told IRIN on Tuesday.

Over the past two weeks, WFP has brought in 28,000 mt of food, almost the same amount brought in for the whole month of October. Mansour hoped to increase this amount, but, citing reports of shooting and looting in Mazar-e Sharif, maintained that events would have to stabilise to do that. He confirmed that 90 mt of food had been looted from their facility in the city over the weekend.

"We are concerned about the safety of aid workers and WFP property in Mazar," he said, adding that he hoped the event would not be repeated.

Of an estimated 250,000 people in the city, 120,000 were recipients of a monthly ration of WFP wheat last week, which should last them through to the end of November. The food agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) plan to mount an immediate distribution to the remaining vulnerable population in the city, as soon as security allows.

Mansour said food delivery operations would resume once security could be guaranteed for commercial truck drivers and national aid workers on the ground. Mansour added that some 400 mt of food assistance on two barges in the southern Uzbekistan river port of Termez, and in neighbouring Turkmenistan, would be shipped into Afghanistan once security conditions stabilised.

However, for the moment insecurity prevails. A WFP spokeswoman, Lindsey Davies, confirmed on Monday that 22 trucks carrying 330 mt of WFP food bound for the northern region had been hit by bomb shrapnel. Although there were no casualties, two of the trucks had been totally destroyed. Initial reports indicated that 80 percent of the food was damaged and unusable, she added.

The ICRC delegate for Afghanistan, Bernard Barrett, speaking in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, shared this view. He told IRIN logistical plans were changing daily, although ICRC had managed to sustain operations throughout the crisis. "We will be evaluating the needs and the security issues as time goes on," he said.

There are some two million Afghans in the north dependent on WFP food aid, needing about 17,000 mt per month. So far this month, WFP has managed to deliver only 2,000 mt from Turkmenistan, but the agency maintains that it will be able to increase food deliveries once security is assured.