United Nations Afghanistan

Ousted President Najibullah spends what may well be the last days of his life in a small room with a television and a radio. There are only a few chairs, enough for his trusted brother and the two generals who remain by his side. Every hour he sits, he waits to learn whether he will live or die. Holed up in a loosely guarded U.N.

Down from the snow-covered mountains they came by the hundreds, to load giant sacks of donated wheat onto their backs or their burros. The worst off said that for days they hadn't eaten much more than grasses foraged from the forest and tea brewed from barley or the leaves of walnut trees. The better off said they hadn't tasted the long flatbread called naan, an Afghan staple, in ages, and had been subsisting on maize baked with grass into coarse, unpleasant loaves.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze called Tuesday for a special U.N. Security Council meeting to ensure compliance with the Afghan peace accords and hinted that the Soviet Union might suspend its troop withdrawal if the United States and Pakistan do not end military aid to rebels fighting to oust the Moscow-backed government. In a speech to the U.N.

The United Nations is trying to speed up emergency relief efforts in Afghanistan, sending hundreds of aid workers back to their vandalized facilities while officials here work to raise billions of dollars to rebuild the ravaged country, officials said Monday. The U.N. is working to secure agreement from the major Afghan factions on a precise time, place and agenda for talks on sharing power in a post-Taliban coalition. Officials of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance agreed Sunday to participate.

The United Nations is returning some of its international staff to Afghanistan after a seven-month absence sparked by the killings of three U.N. staffers in July and August. The top U.N. humanitarian coordinator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, cited progress by Afghanistan's Taliban militia in investigating the killings, as well as evidence of Taliban efforts to address U.N. security concerns.

Foreign ministers from six of Afghanistan's neighbors, the United States and Russia intend to meet Nov. 12 with the U.N. envoy who has been trying to set up a post-Taliban government in the central Asian nation, U.S. officials said Friday. Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N. representative for Afghanistan, has been holding intensive talks with Afghans and members of the Pakistani government in Islamabad and will visit Iran before returning to New York on Nov. 10.

Down from the snow-covered mountains they came by the hundreds, to load giant sacks of donated wheat onto their backs or their burros. The worst off said that for days they hadn't eaten much more than grasses foraged from the forest and tea brewed from barley or the leaves of walnut trees. The better off said they hadn't tasted the long flatbread called naan, an Afghan staple, in ages, and had been subsisting on maize baked with grass into coarse, unpleasant loaves.

The Taliban offered to stop growing poppies--which help make Afghanistan the world's second-largest opium producer after the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia--in exchange for recognition by the United Nations as the government of the country. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme leader of the Islamic militia, made the offer in remarks that were broadcast by the Taliban over the radio. Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

The United States and Russia are joining forces to ban weapon sales to Afghanistan's Taliban regime in an effort to close terrorist training camps in that country and flush out Saudi militant Osama bin Laden. Frustrated by inaction by the Taliban since limited international sanctions were levied last year--and spurred by Bin Laden's alleged connection to the October bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen--Washington wants to increase the pressure on the radical Islamic regime to cooperate.

The Security Council voted Tuesday to tighten sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban regime unless it closes "terrorist" training camps and hands over Osama bin Laden, suspected in the bombings of two U.S. embassies. Russia and the United States joined forces to muscle the resolution through the 15-member council, despite some countries' concern that the sanctions will only fuel Afghanistan's civil war and worsen conditions for its people.

Foreign ministers from six of Afghanistan's neighbors, the United States and Russia intend to meet Nov. 12 with the U.N. envoy who has been trying to set up a post-Taliban government in the central Asian nation, U.S. officials said Friday. Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N. representative for Afghanistan, has been holding intensive talks with Afghans and members of the Pakistani government in Islamabad and will visit Iran before returning to New York on Nov. 10.

President Bush gave the Taliban regime in Afghanistan a new chance Thursday to turn over Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants and bring an end to the war there. But barring such surrender, he said, the campaign could last two years. The president also said for the first time that, after the fighting ends, he saw a longer-term "nation-building" role for the United States, along with the United Nations, in stabilizing war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The United Nations closed down most of its subsidized food distribution operations in the Afghan capital Saturday over disputes with the hard-line Taliban regime on hiring women. Hungry children, women clad in faded burkas and men in baggy Afghan trousers and knee-length shirts assembled as usual in front of 120 bakeries sponsored by the U.N. World Food Program but were told that there was no bread.

U.N. international employees began returning to Afghanistan after the ruling Taliban militia guaranteed they would not face a violent backlash because of newly proposed sanctions. Three U.N. workers arrived in the beleaguered capital, Kabul, while seven others returned to Herat and Kandahar, said Erick de Mul, the U.N. coordinator for Afghanistan.

The Security Council voted Tuesday to tighten sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban regime unless it closes "terrorist" training camps and hands over Osama bin Laden, suspected in the bombings of two U.S. embassies. Russia and the United States joined forces to muscle the resolution through the 15-member council, despite some countries' concern that the sanctions will only fuel Afghanistan's civil war and worsen conditions for its people.

More Western aid workers pulled out of the Afghan capital, Kabul, fearing a backlash if the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions against the ruling Taliban movement, Western sources said. An announcement about the arms embargo is expected Tuesday. Imposition of an embargo, banning Taliban officials from overseas trips and shutting Taliban offices abroad are sanctions proposed by the U.S. and Russia to force the expulsion of militant Osama bin Laden.

U.N. international employees began returning to Afghanistan after the ruling Taliban militia guaranteed they would not face a violent backlash because of newly proposed sanctions. Three U.N. workers arrived in the beleaguered capital, Kabul, while seven others returned to Herat and Kandahar, said Erick de Mul, the U.N. coordinator for Afghanistan.

Security Council members called Wednesday for an immediate end to the fighting in Afghanistan and for peace talks as the government denied that the capital was about to fall to the Taliban militia. The appeal was announced after a meeting of the 15-nation Security Council in New York, following a string of military successes by the radical Islamic Taliban that has brought the conflict to the gates of Kabul.

The United States and Russia are joining forces to ban weapon sales to Afghanistan's Taliban regime in an effort to close terrorist training camps in that country and flush out Saudi militant Osama bin Laden. Frustrated by inaction by the Taliban since limited international sanctions were levied last year--and spurred by Bin Laden's alleged connection to the October bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen--Washington wants to increase the pressure on the radical Islamic regime to cooperate.

Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban rulers reversed themselves Thursday and said the United Nations could reopen bakeries that employ widows and feed the poor in the fundamentalist Muslim country. The decision came a day after the Taliban shut 25 bakeries and told the 360 women who worked there to go home. The regime generally forbids women to work. Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel, who was in Kabul, the capital, gave no explanation for the change of policy.