Amid signs the United States may be preparing to strike Afghanistan, law and order began to break down in Kabul with residents on Thursday reporting armed daylight robberies, looting and shooting by Taliban security guards.
The slide towards lawlessness came as a council of Afghanistan's leading clerics met for a second day to decide the fate of the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, after a warning from their leader that the United States was bent on the Taliban's destruction.
''There is a sharp rise in thefts,'' said one resident who was robbed in his home at gunpoint.
Crime in Kabul, a city once known for its streets lined with roses but pounded almost to rubble by factional fighting in the 1990s, is home to the poorest of Afghanistan's 20 million people.
The capture of the capital by the hardline Taliban in 1996 marked the return of law and order as the purist movement imposed its Islamic system of government.
Many of the new attacks were carried out by looters posing as members of the Taliban's feared religious police.
''Mainly men carrying arms are entering people's homes under the guise of checking to see if they have arms or are watching a movie or listening to music,'' said one resident who declined to be identified.
''The owner of the house lets them in because he has nothing to hide. Then he and the rest of the male family members are rounded up and women are forced to hand them over cash or jewellery,'' he said.
The Taliban religious police keeps a tight leash on public behaviour strictly enforcing rules that require men not to trim their beards and to wear traditional loose Islamic dress, ban movies and music and forcing women always to wear the all-enveloping burqa that covers them from head to toe.
Bureau Report
