KABUL, Afghanistan - The women of Afghanistan are some of the strongest women I have ever met in the world.

They have suffered subjugation and abuse, and faced inhumanities on a daily basis. Pain and memories live in their eyes; just one glance can shatter a person's naivete and send chills up your spine.

But there is the other side to real Afghan woman. She is like many other women in the world.

She loves her family, especially her children; they give her the strength to survive in the face of defeat. She is proud of her country no matter how many tears she has shed for it. And there is no one or nothing she loves more than her God; the only reason she believes that a change will come.

Beyond the burqa, the scars, and the remnants of three decades of war - 30 years that has crushed a country and the spirit of a people - it is the Afghan woman who has shaped Afghanistan.

And it is they who can shape a new future for a people who have been isolated and forgotten for decades.

"Young love! If you do not fall in the battle of Maiwand; By God, someone is saving you as a symbol of shame!" the Afghan heroine Malalai yelled as she ripped off her veil.

It was 1880, during the Second Anglo-Afghan war. The Afghan soldiers, who outnumbered the British, kept falling one by one. They could not handle the heavy artillery; they were exhausted and felt defeated. Bodies lay, some bloody and some bruised.

But it was Malalai's words that gave the Afghan soldiers the motivation and spirit to continue in battle and eventually defeat the Anglo-Indian army.

For over a century now, families in Afghanistan have named their daughters Malalai, hoping that they too can one day be as brave as Malalai of Maiwand.

Malalai Kakar of Kandahar lovingly prepared her six children for school every morning; clothing them, feeding them, and kissing them goodbye. She would then put on her police uniform in one of the most volatile southern provinces of Afghanistan - one still infested with a radical ideology. With her Kalashnikov and pistol at her side she was ready for another day at work.

Kakar, like her father, became an officer in Kandahar to help the people and bring justice. And after the fall of the Taliban she worked to help rescue women who needed help; ones who were being tortured and abused.

According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, 87 percent of women in Afghanistan suffer from domestic violence. It's one of the most dangerous places to be a woman.

But thanks to the increase in female police officers who are constantly threatened and targeted, other women are feeling more comfortable to report abuses and step out of the black hole they have been living in.

Malalai of Maiwand died waving the flag of Afghanistan during battle, not able to see her country in its victory.

Malalai of Kandahar was shot and killed by the Taliban, leaving six children to grow up without a mother.

But to many, she died waving the spirit of a new Afghanistan - one that will lift itself beyond the rubble of a shattered nation - in hopes that maybe her children will see the victory she had been fighting for.

Hopefully, that victory will come soon.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — So, what is happening with the Pakistan Taliban?

From where I stand, there is a curious pattern to recent events.

Let's connect the dots: a few weeks ago, a new Taliban code of conduct emerged ordering more discipline and less brutality, especially against local civilians.

Reports immediately surfaced within Pakistan that some hard-line militants were rejecting the new code, preferring to continue a campaign of terror that includes beheading people and publicly displaying the bodies.

Then – late last month – I made contact with a senior Taliban leader who had fought on the frontlines in Afghanistan and helped lead a bloody uprising at Islamabad's Red Mosque in 2007.

I was expecting the usual anti-American diatribe and I got that; but I got something else - a surprising denunciation of other Pakistani Taliban.

He labeled them 'not real Taliban' and said they had no future. He said his allegiance was to the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and the real fight was against coalition forces in Afghanistan, not Pakistan's military.

He also surprisingly mentioned the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, rejecting his authority and saying he had no contact with him.

Just a few days ago, Mehsud was reported to have been killed in a U.S drone strike, though his death has not been confirmed.

Now there are reports from Pakistani officials of a shoot-out among Taliban rivals during a meeting to choose a successor to Mehsud, leaving one senior commander dead. The Taliban have denied the reports.

All of this takes place amid a Pakistan military offensive against the Taliban, a U.S. military surge in Afghanistan and an upcoming Afghan election. At the same time, the international community is talking of negotiating with so-called 'good Taliban.'

The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to reject the possibility of negotiations. That at least is the public face; but in Pakistan there is the new code of conduct, an increasingly effective campaign of missile attacks by the United States, Taliban turning on Taliban and –- probably - the deaths of senior militants. It may be the militants themselves are trying to define just who are the 'good Taliban.'

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The car in front of me is carrying a man at the heart of the Taliban uprising in Pakistan.

This has been a carefully orchestrated rendezvous: Secrecy is everything.

We arranged for our cars to pass at a designated spot at a turnoff on the outskirts of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

We slow down, and the other car positions in front of us.

We are led down a narrow alleyway and into a non-descript house for a face-to-face interview.

This has all been patiently organized by our intermediary, a man known to the militant and trusted by us.

But there are always nagging concerns. Some in our car are a little nervous, and that is perfectly understandable, but I am comfortable we have taken every safeguard.

The man I finally meet is tall, probably in his mid-to-late 30's with a heavy black beard. He is wearing a white shawal kameez (traditional Pakistani dress), and he ties a white turban around his head.

He is wanted by Pakistani police for terrorism.

This is a man who has fought on the front lines both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was a leader of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, the scene of a siege by Pakistan military in 2007 which left more than 100 people dead.

We can't film his face, and we can't identify him. He tells us we can refer to him only as “Mullah Wajid.”

As we begin the interview, at first he won't meet my eye. When we shake hands he looks slightly away.

My cameraman can only film him from behind, and he won't allow us even to film his hands.

Two men stand behind our camera watching every shot. When the interview is over they command us to stop filming immediately.

But the interview itself is a surprise. Interviews with Taliban are rare. To have the chance to put questions directly to a man so heavily involved in the insurgency shines a light into a world often closed from us.

I expect the usual anti-America diatribe, and there is. He says the U.S and coalition forces must leave Afghanistan, and he wants a return to Taliban rule there.

He also criticizes some in Pakistan for being pro-U.S and implementing U.S. foreign policy.

What I wasn't expecting was his denunciation of other Taliban.

He says some in Pakistan have gone too far and are inflicting suffering on ordinary civilians. He says the supreme Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, has rejected these militants and says they are not “real Taliban.”

This is a twist, and it comes after the release of a new Taliban code of conduct. The code says civilian suffering and casualties are to be avoided, urging Taliban to go after “high value” targets like coalition troops and government officials.

The Taliban is bogged down in heavy fighting both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Like any insurgency, if it loses the people, it loses the war.

And now the U.S. and others are seeking out what they call “good Taliban:” moderate militants they can negotiate with.

The Taliban leadership wants to cleanse itself of the rogue elements. It wants to present a disciplined, cohesive force that can't easily be divided and conquered.

“Mullah Wajid” may be rejecting some hard-liners, but he hasn't gone soft. He wants nothing less than the U.S. out of all Muslim land.

I ask him if he is prepared to kill and die for his beliefs.

"Yes. Inshallah (God willing).”

In that he is not so different from other Taliban after all.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The Taliban is on a public relations drive. The militants fighting on fronts from Afghanistan to Pakistan fear they are losing the propaganda war among their own people. So, the leadership is doing something about it, releasing a new "code of conduct" for fighters in the field.

This is a how-to guide as to what is acceptable and what is not. For instance: "A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets." What does this mean? Crudely, kill soldiers and other "high value" targets and avoid civilian casualties.

There is to be a reduction in suicide bombings, again to avoid killing civilians; Taliban fighters are not allowed to discriminate against people based on tribal roots, language or where people are from.

This code also reinforces a strict hierarchy: only provincial commanders can agree to prisoner exchanges and prisoners must not be released or exchanged for money.

Only Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, or one of his deputies, can give the order to execute NATO soldiers, senior Afghan army officers or government officials.

And so it goes on. You get the meaning. This code of conduct is to show that the Taliban is a disciplined force, instead of a brutal force, one fighting for the people.

This isn't new of course: the Taliban has issued similar codes in the past. What is interesting is that this new one is being issued at this time.

Now, most of this is aimed at Afghanistan - but it applies equally to Taliban in Pakistan. Indeed the booklet was produced and released from Pakistan.

Personally, I have heard from people who have turned away from the Taliban. Locals who may have had sympathies with the militants have grown tired of the reign of terror and violence.

Look at Pakistan's Swat Valley: I have seen the images of beheaded bodies being displayed in the town square, of women publicly beaten. Hardly behavior that meets this code of conduct.

The lesson of insurgencies the world over is: "If you don't win the people you don't win the war."

But already there are reports surfacing that some "hardliners" in the Taliban want to continue doing business as usual, rejecting the code.

Now, here's another interesting point: this code comes as Afghanistan heads to a new presidential election in August and the U.S and others begin to reach out to the so-called "good Taliban" - the militants they can work with.

Undoubtedly there are more moderate elements among the insurgency, there are some who have split from the Taliban.

But this is an intricate network of tribes, kinship and shared allegiances, motivated as much by money and revenge as often as ideology. Where is the "code" for separating the "good" from the "bad" Taliban?

OUTSIDE PESHAWAR, Pakistan – General Nadeem Ahmad is about to make a stunning and frightening admission. In a crowded relief camp outside Peshawar in Pakistan’s northwest, he admits he may well be handing over money to Taliban fighters posing as refugees.

General Nadeem is coordinating relief funds, with 4 billion rupees (about $500 million) being handed out so far.

People queue for hours to have their identities checked and receive their money. It is a painstaking and cautious process - but not foolproof.

It is certain that some of those receiving the money are militants, ready to return home and wreak havoc.

This is the complex problem facing General Nadeem and others fighting an enemy they often cannot see.

He is the man in charge of resettling the almost three million Pakistanis who have fled the fighting between the army and the Taliban.

It has been an extraordinary effort: tent cities appearing overnight, and providing food, water, shelter and medical treatment for the young and old, men and women.

These people are refugees in their own country, victims of a war they did not start and mostly want no part of.

But there are others lurking here. The Taliban have vanished back into the population.

They look the same, they dress the same: Men with beards in traditional Pakistani dress, the shawal kameez – making for an invisible enemy.

The people he says are now emboldened; identifying the militants in their midst and informing police.

But how many go undetected?

For the Pakistan military, fighting the Taliban is like wrestling with a column of smoke: once detected it simply changes shape and moves.

It is a matter of history now that the Taliban was spawned and promoted here in Pakistan. Back then, they were handy foot soldiers for the war with the Soviets in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan has a tiger by the tail.

The Taliban has threatened large parts of Pakistan, and actually managed to gain control of some regions close to the capital Islamabad.

This comes after years of insurgent violence. Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in the U.S., Pakistan has suffered around 6,000 terrorist attacks.

There have been more suicide bombings in Pakistan than either Iraq or Afghanistan. Former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in an attack.

Terrorism has drained the economy: estimates of the cost to Pakistan runs to at least $40 billion. That far outweighs the estimated $13 billion the U.S. has given Pakistan for its role in the war on terror.

Soldiers earning only $100 a month are now fighting and dying to turn back the Taliban.

In parts of the country, the army is claiming victory.

But as many Taliban are being killed, many others are simply vanishing.

General Nadeem flies me over the war-torn Swat Valley, from our helicopter he points to the mountains: “That’s where they have fled to,” he said.

Beyond that is Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces are also trying to oust the militants from their strongholds.

But the Taliban can so easily cross the border into Pakistan, and there they vanish. More invisible fighters in what many Pakistanis admit is "a battle for our soul."

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - I asked Richard Holbrooke a question this week and his answer amazed me.

The Obama administration's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan said U.S. military forces had a feeble understanding of the Taliban and other militants they were fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal region.

"I am very dissatisfied with the amount of knowledge that exists in Washington about our enemy," Holbrooke said. "I am deeply disturbed about our knowledge on this subject."

Holbrooke's comment came during an informal off-camera briefing with CNN and several other news agencies. A U.S. official hosted the event inside a private residence in Islamabad.

Holbrooke was in town to meet Pakistani leaders and bolster the strained relationship between Islamabad and Washington in the fight against extremists.

He also came to promote the Obama administration's new policy in the region, a policy designed to combine an aggressive military strategy with billions of dollars in economic aid.

About 25 of us sat around a plush living room. We had 30 minutes to ask questions. Admiral Mike Mullen was there too. He's the highest ranking U.S. military official.

These sessions are rare and very useful.

You don't get officials on camera but sometimes you get them to relax and open up on sensitive subjects.

With Holbrooke that's not always necessary. He has a reputation of telling it like it is.

That's exactly what he did when I asked him how well Washington understands the mindset of militants who welcome death, militants who are willing to wrap themselves with a vest packed with explosives and blow themselves up.

Holbrooke was blunt in his response. Washington's knowledge about the Taliban and what motivates them is not where it should be, he said. Clearly it was a rebuke of the Bush administration's strategy in the region.

Ever the optimist Holbrooke said the U.S. will do things better and learn more about the enemy.

Holbrooke said he was convinced that with more economic stability and security in the region fewer young men would join the Taliban.

Despite his optimism Holbrooke's answer raises a lot of troubling questions.

Washington doesn't know the Taliban? The enemy U.S. troops have been fighting for more than eight years? How do you beat the enemy if you don't even know them?

Without knowing the mindset of the enemy how can the U.S. be so sure that adding more troops in Afghanistan and targeting militants in Pakistan with U.S. missile strikes from unmanned predator drones is not spawning more extremists?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but if U.S. military leaders don't know the mindset of their enemy, then they don't know the answers either and I just don't find that very comforting.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Few people get to meet the leader of the Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Mehsud, so when Pakistani journalist Behroz Khan was invited to one of his rare press conferences last year, he admits his heart started thumping a little harder.

"You know he's behind the deadliest attacks and these suicide bombers," Khan told CNN. "It is, I would say, a bit scary."

What Khan saw was not the long-bearded, menacing giant he expected. Khan said Mehsud was no more than 5 feet 4 inches tall (1.62 meters), portly, neatly dressed and a bit of a jokester.

"He seemed like a very normal person, cracking jokes and commenting on everything."

But no one was laughing in the U.S. this week when Mehsud vowed to launch an attack on Washington.

In a series of phone calls to the media, Mehsud also claimed responsibility for the recent suicide bombing of a police station in Islamabad and an attack on a police academy in Lahore.

The attacks were revenge, Mehsud said, for U.S. missile strikes on Pakistani soil. Mehsud's threat comes amid U.S. President Barack Obama's call for a crackdown on militants in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal region, Mehsud's home turf. U.S. intelligence officials also put a $5 million bounty on Mehsud's head.

Mehsud's threat may be his answer to Washington, said terrorism analyst Muhammad Amir Rana. Rana is head of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank that monitors militant groups in Pakistan.

"I think he wanted to give the message that if you have the head money on me, I can take revenge," Rana said.

Rana said Washington's $5 million bounty entrenches Mehsud as Pakistan's most powerful militant commander and puts him on the world's most wanted list with names like Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

It was alongside Mullah Omar's Taliban fighters in Afghanistan where Mehsud established a reputation as a fierce fighter in the 1990s. Mullah Omar was so impressed with the high-school-dropout-turned-militant that he named him a regional commander in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal region, Rana said.

Like his mentor Omar, Mehsud demanded never to be photographed. South Waziristan became his stronghold, a place where Mehsud still offers shelter and training to jihadists and Al Qaeda groups fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Rana said.

Mehsud was declared the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in 2007. Last year, Time Magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world because of the vast network of militants he controls.

Today Mehsud is suspected of being the architect of some of Pakistan's deadliest suicide attacks and the mastermind behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Mehsud has denied involvement in the assassination. But Rana and U.S. intelligence officials said they have yet to see evidence that Mehsud is capable of striking beyond the Afghan-Pakistan region.

"Obviously he's challenging the U.S.," said Rana. "But that doesn't mean he'll go to Washington and do everything by himself."

Rana said Mehsud remains a major threat to Pakistan and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Journalist Behroz Khan said he doesn't think the joking militant leader he met was kidding when he claimed to have hundreds of suicide bombers and called them his atom bombs.

"He said the infidels have their own nuclear bombs so they are my atom bombs," Khan said.

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan – Once known as "Little America," Helmand Province in Afghanistan's southern region is now considered one of the most volatile provinces in the region. Before the Soviet invasion in the 1970s, the U.S. Agency for International Development poured in vast resources and projects to help the province prosper. It built dams and irrigation systems and was welcomed by Afghans in this fertile area.

Now Helmand is permeated with insurgents, warfare and opium poppies. Afghanistan is responsible for producing more than 90 percent of the world's opium, more than half of which comes from Helmand.

But Afghans who remember the old days have warm memories of the American presence in Helmand.

On the one-and-a-half hour flight from Kabul to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, I was caught up in conversation with two middle-aged women who are part of the provincial council there. I asked them several questions trying to get their perspective on the situation. One of the women lived in the province through all the wars, the other left for Pakistan during the barbaric civil war that ravaged the country in the early 1990s and stayed there throughout the Taliban regime.

They told me anyone who remembers the 1960s and 1970s welcomes America's return to the province. It is expected that nearly a third of the anticipated 30,000 U.S. troops to come to Afghanistan this year will be based in the southern region where the Taliban and other insurgent groups have been gaining ground.

USAID is already there, fighting its own fight.

The organization is working to ensure the people and the province thrive once more, investing in old projects as well as the new. USAID helped the government of the province distribute to some 32,000 farmers about $400 worth of seeds and fertilizer each so they can grow something other than opium poppies.

It's a small step to fixing an enormous problem, but it's one that is welcomed by many.

"If you can just help the people of Afghanistan in this way, the fighting will go away," farmer Abdul Qadir told me to share with the world. "These Taliban and other enemies of the country will also disappear."

Qadir explained that building infrastructure and helping the people of Helmand will have more of an effect than any gun or bomb ever will.

BAJAUR AGENCY, Pakistan - He looked annoyed and carried an old AK-47 assault rifle. He walked up to me, looked me dead in the eyes and yelled: "Go! Just go!" This was my up-close look at what anti-American anger looks and feels like in Pakistan's lawless tribal region.

What military strategists in Washington should know is that the venom did not come from members of the Taliban or al Qaeda. It came from Pakistani tribesmen who had taken up arms and formed militias to fight against the Taliban, but equally willing to take on U.S. and NATO forces.

I saw hundreds of these militiamen during a rare trip for journalists to Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area, or FATA, along the Afghan border. FATA is widely believed to be home to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

It's slightly bigger than the state of New Jersey and it's the focal point in the U.S.-led war on terror. In recent months Washington has turned up the heat on Pakistan and accused it of not doing enough against the Taliban and al Qaeda. This trip was an effort by the Pakistan Army to refute criticism and show the world it's making progress.

Part of the progress, according to the Pakistan Army, has been the emergence of armed militias who've vowed to stand shoulder to shoulder with soldiers to fight the Taliban. The Pakistan Army says its partnership with these civilian forces is crucial in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

What jeopardizes the partnership, they say, are U.S. incursions onto Pakistani soil. In recent weeks suspected U.S. missile strikes targeting militants in Pakistan's tribal region have increased, so has anti-American outrage, even among those who are enemies of the Taliban. I asked some of the tribesmen who they hated more, the Taliban or U.S. forces? "To us, they¹re equal," they said.

I saw the anti-American outrage in the eyes of the armed militiaman who got in my face and asked me to leave. I kept calm and reached out my hand. He shook it and eked out a smile. For a moment I felt his anger was gone. But in Pakistan's tribal region there is a lot more anti-American outrage that remains, and few analysts believe U.S. military strategy in the region will succeed without doing something about it.