NAHAL OZ, Israel - A tractor plows a dusty field in this Israeli kibbutz as a plume of black smoke clouds the sky over Gaza, just half a kilometer away.

A fuel truck is inspected by an Israeli solider at a checkpoint close to Nahal Oz fuel terminal, January 7.

Only about 50 of the 300 residents and workers at the Nahal Oz kibbutz have stayed during the Israeli military assault on Gaza, including Benny Sela, who is in charge of security on the collective farm.

His wife and children keep in regular phone contact from a safer location in Israel. But Sela has stayed behind to protect the farm workers, who are helping to run one of Israel's oldest collective farms, a vital part of the Jewish state's economy.

In Sela's front yard, an olive tree stands.

"You see the sign of peace?" he says.

The Nahal Oz kibbutz has been a regular target of mortars and rockets launched from Gaza for the past eight years. Days after Israel launched its military operation in Gaza on December 27, a rocket strike killed a kibbutz resident - one of three Israeli civilians killed since the Gaza offensive was launched.

A handful of farm workers continue to plow the wheat fields and tend to the hundreds of dairy cows, seemingly unfazed by the periodic claps of thunderous rocket fire going into Gaza.

Sela is constantly monitoring the kibbutz - which is surrounded by an electric fence - in his armored Land Rover, checking on wheat fields that stretch all the way to the Gaza border. The fence is connected to a beeper to alert Sela if anyone crosses the wire.

Near the wheat fields are Israeli tanks, waiting to cross into Gaza.

Sela believes economic action is the only long-term solution to the tattered relations between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza.

"A lot of business we can do here, but you know the Palestinian people they are very poor and they don't have power, you know, to resist the Hamas terrorists," Sela said.

The latest conflict is not the first time Nahal Oz has been at the center of Israeli-Palestinian tension. In 1956, Nahal Oz attracted national attention when then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan delivered one of his most powerful speeches after a kibbutz worker was killed by Egyptian soldiers.

The farms had become a buffer between displaced Palestinians in Gaza and their land in Israel lost in 1948. Dayan warned Israelis against complacency,
of hoping for peace in the face of so much Arab anger.

"This is our life's choice, to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down," Dayan said.

Sela, who has lived in Nahal Oz for 21 years, said he supports the Israeli army's current fight to stop Hamas rockets, but worries the impact these policies are having on the next generation - particularly his son.

"He said all the Arabs, they are very bad," Sela said of his son. "I said... not all the Arabs. There (are) good Arabs and bad Arabs.

"Alternately, there (are) good Jewish and bad."

THE GULF OF ADEN – What struck me as our van threaded its way along the narrow harbor wall to the Italian warship was just how small the anti-piracy vessel was.

Liberia-flagged tanker 'The Biscaglia' was hijacked last month in the Gulf of Aden.

We'd met the night before with the ship's press officer, Lt Enrico Vignola, who would be escorting us for our five hours at sea with NATO's Standing Maritime Group 2.

Over dinner he described the destroyer-class vessel we would be aboard, the "Luigi Durand de la Penne," named after an Italian World War II diver whose claim to fame was blowing up British warships in Egypt.

For a moment I thought of the irony; a British reporter aboard a ship thus named. But there is little irony in war, only shifting allegiances. At the end of the war the diver won praise from British wartime leader Winston Churchill. Strange. Watch my report on NATO patrol vessel

Vignola described his ship, almost 150 meters long, with a crew in excess of 300, surface-to-air missiles, anti-submarine missiles, 54mm main guns, 62mm super rapid guns, a helicopter... To a land lubber like myself it all sounded pretty impressive.

Thus my surprise on boarding. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that sprinter Usain Bolt could run from one end of the main deck to the other in about 10 seconds - but matching that to the reality of finding pirates in a million square kilometers of water puts a very awkward perspective on the task facing both ship and its crew.

Some of the vessels captured by the pirates, like the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, are twice the destroyer's length. The crew of the "Luigi Durand de la Penne," however, are not dwarfed by their task. Inside the steel hull of the ship is a warren of corridors and war rooms crammed with hi-tech instrumentation.

I have never been aboard a warship before, so managing the steep stairs and squeezing through tight hatches designed to seal of sections in case of attack damage proved challenging.

But Vignola was patient . He wanted to ensure we saw and understood everything - especially about the ship's helicopter. He and all the senior figures onboard stressed the same issue - it's the helicopters that make the difference. They can fly five times farther than the ship's radar can see and find and deter pirates long before the destroyer can close in on them.

I was also surprised to learn that despite what appear to be several opportunities to capture identified pirates, the NATO vessels often let them escape, ready to attack more ships.

The ship's captain, Fabrizio Simoncini, task force admiral Giovani Gumiero and Vignola all explained it in different ways. But what they agreed on was the complex nature of targeting pirates in international waters.

If the pirates shoot at NATO vessels,  then the patrols can return fire -  to kill if need be. But most of the time, they explain, confrontations with pirates are not as clear cut, with their quarry often hiding among fishing boats.

NATO's priority is to protect merchant shipping, not give chase to pirates. Their mandate is to defend shipping, deter pirate attack and disrupt pirate activities.

Those onboard the "Luigi Durand de la Penne" do not consider themselves to be trigger happy. My brief visit left me feeling, as I often do after contact with professional servicemen and women, that I had met a dedicated group of people executing their orders thoroughly, proficiently and to the letter of their nation's interests.

They told me with clear pride how the captains of merchant ships often thank them profusely after they have been safely escorted away from pirates. It's hard to understand the fear of a merchant captain, they explained, as he steers his valuable cargo day after day through waters invested with pirates using hi-tech equipment.

It all amounts to a game of maritime cat and mouse, with the mouse getting bolder - and more sophisticated. The cat, as I have now learned, is well intentioned, largely de-clawed and not as scary as his tiny quarry might once have thought.

And as we know from children's cartoons, mice can only get bolder in the absence of a scary cat.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan  - After my pre-election blog with metaphoric ruminations about gathering storm clouds, downpours, damped spirits and political battles, I wasn't too surprised when the heavens did open halfway through voting. Fortunately I'd brought a rain jacket with me - but it did cross my mind that I'd rather tempted fate talking about the weather so close to the lawmakers casting their ballots.

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s new president, faces some of the toughest challenges of any world leader.

In the parliamentarians' car park in front of the National Assembly building I counted about a dozen satellite trucks feeding live signals for Pakistan's numerous independent local TV stations. Many of them were pumping out live pictures of the voting, interspersed with breaking news analysis of quotes between rival representatives of the three different candidates.

As we set up own portable live transmission facility I couldn't help but reflect how far the tools of democracy have advanced here during the past decade. It took what amounted to a dictator to do it, but under the ousted president, military leader General Pervez Musharraf, the media in Pakistan multiplied.

When Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup nine years ago, his men only had to take control of PTV, the state broadcaster, to get the message out that Musharraf was the new boss.

Today, thanks to Musharraf's enlightened approach, he'd need to take over a whole host of broadcasters if he wanted a repeat of his 1999 power grab. That's not to say that he didn't try to do just that and close many media outlets down during his waning months in office. But you get the point.

The country is now awash with unvarnished, if sometimes a little inaccurate, TV reporting it never had before. And the man many media organizations here had helped hound from office was the man who helped get them off the ground in the first place.

Strange maybe, but Musharraf more than earned his ticket to retirement by long overstaying the welcome he came to power with, abusing his authority with transparent but, nonetheless, undemocratic manipulations to keep control of the country.

But enough of Musharraf. Saturday was all about the new guy. A three-way race.

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, began the day as favorite.

We spent the morning by the path parliamentarians were using to reach the National Assembly and vote. Every so often we stopped one or two of them to ask their opinions. No one bucked the trend. Zardari still seemed to be the man.

That's not to say they we are fans of his. Many of the opposition candidates were particularly vocal on what they expected Zardari to do if he won the vote: hand power back to the National Assembly taken by Musharraf. They wanted, they told us, a president who is a father figure for the country, who can unify and not divide. In short they want him to shed his party affiliation as well as his power.

It was while we were by the path that the rain began, slow at first, then heavier and in bigger splashes that discolored the tarmac. After a quick wry smile about my previous blog, I decided that was the moment to go and watch the historic event unfold firsthand.

As I came through the door high in the press gallery overlooking the parliamentarians in their chairs below, it took me a moment to orientate myself to the pictures I'd seen on TV.

There was the prime minister way below me and the ballot box on the raised table in front of him and next the chairman of the electoral commission. It was as if one had entered the upper circle at a theatre, with the prime minister in the front row of the stalls and the electoral officer on the stage.

But no theater has such a sense of awe and power as soon as you step inside it. The people below are not actors: they carry their power, privileges and responsibilities home with them every day. I suppose there is a solemnity to it but I had a very real sense of history being made here.

You could say that's foolish; after all, the deals to secure the votes were made days, weeks ago. But the men and women below me were turning their trust in those deals to ticks in a box. It's a moment of faith for them - and I felt caught up in that moment.

In hushed whispers a Pakistani journalist next to me pointed to the female parliamentarians below and told me it was Musharraf who had done much for women during his rule. It was true to a degree but I couldn't help wondering if a fear of what the next president might bring was at the root of his re-rationalization of history casting Musharraf as some paragon of democracy.

When I came out it was raining harder than ever and I was greeted by the news that a suicide car bomber had attacked a police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, killing and wounding dozens of people. The blast was so powerful stores near the checkpoint had collapsed, people were still stuck inside, and the storm clouds of the day before had been a portent.

A few hours later, when we saw on the local TV stations live pictures of a garden banquet for lawmakers hosted by the president elect Asif Ali Zardari, we called contacts for a last-minute invite. Not only were we invited but I was allowed one question in what I was to later find out was an exclusive one-on-one interview with the new president.

I couldn't help myself. I asked three. Well, what else can a reporter do when you're given first shot at a new president? He'd won as expected more than two-thirds of the vote. In one province of 164 lawmakers, none voted against him. Anyway I was chastised, hopefully tongue-in-cheek, by his very media-savvy press aide for my enthusiasm.

What struck me, as Zardari explained his victory as a significant step towards a fully democratic Pakistan, was how he framed it as a tribute to the aspirations of Benazir Bhutto, his late wife and former prime minister.

It made me realize how hard it will be for him if he is to divorce himself from party politics. When Bhutto was assassinated, Zardari took over leadership of the party because he was judged as the best person to stop it from breaking apart. I'm not sure his party believes that he's any less necessary to unity than before.

On the issue of handing back powers to the parliament taken by Musharraf, Zardari said he was committed to it, adding: "I shall hand over all the powers the parliament desires."

A few minutes later the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told me working out the details would be easy because both men are both from the same party.

As we drove back from the opulence of banquet, I was struck by the emptiness of the streets. It was around 10pm and apart from a few police we saw no one.

When the results were announced a few hours earlier, small noisy crowds had gathered outside the National Assembly. I've seen these types of crowds before. If you ignore them they go away, but point a camera in their direction and they animate and energize as if a switch were flipped. Even these stalwarts of political celebration had gone.

Strange. One would think there was something to celebrate. The election was the first fully democratic vote in over a decade, and Zardari had successfully built a political consensus and engineered Musharraf's removal without bloodshed. No easy task. But no one we could find was dancing in the streets.

Was it because he is still tarnished in popular perception with charges, he refutes, of corruption? Or because he refuses to reinstate the Chief Justice sacked by Musharraf that many here feel is a test of his commitment to democracy? Or because people have no faith in any of their politicians?

To be successful Zardari will have to win over the people. His and the country's battles ahead are numerous and complex. Tackling the tanking economy and take on the Taliban will both require popular and informed consent.

From what I have learned from my Pakistani journalist friends, Zardari has a short window of opportunity now to get the increasingly influential media in his corner or face their relentless scrutiny of any perceived failings.

He has a tough job ahead.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – When I got up this morning, heavy storm clouds were gathering over the pale sprawling buildings of the National Assembly. On the eve of the first fully democratic presidential election in more than a decade, it might have be interpreted as a portent for the political battle about to play out inside the fading 1960s building.

A U.S. raid against militants in Pakistan has drawn a strong response, as seen by this protest in Lahore Friday.

And as the heavy rain began to pound the flower beds around the Assembly, one could imagine metaphoric comparisons emphasizing how nothing could dampen spirits here ahead of the vote.

Strangely, none of the above apply - despite the recent disposal of the previous president, Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a bloodless coup nine years ago.

I suppose in part it's because the battle seems already settled by the politicians, who are the only people eligible to vote. Also, many people are too afraid to invest too much hope, lest these leaders let them down as so many have done before.

The voting begins at 10am Saturday and by 3pm all 342 members of the lower house of the parliament, the 100 senators from the upper house and the four provincial assemblies will have had their chance to cast their ballots. Within an hour Pakistan's next president will be announced.

The man widely tipped to win is Asif Ali Zardari. He is Benazir Bhutto's widower and has been leading her Pakistan People's Party following her assassination late last year.

To many outside Pakistan it may seem odd. Zardari has been dogged by allegations of corruption and is widely dubbed "Mr. 10 Percent" - an apparent reference to money he allegedly skimmed while in office. As a result he has spent eleven-and-a-half years in jail.

To his party and his supporters he is innocent. When I met Sherry Rehman, the Information Minister, one of his close allies, she assured me the charges were politically motivated and fueled by flawed reporting. Whatever the perception of his past, and a good few politicians here have been thrown in jail when they've fallen from power, he's been able to build the political consensus to get elected. Indeed, the Information Minister told me, he has more backing than needed to win comfortably.

With this analysis in mind I wasn't too surprised when I was in the marketplace, pressing people for their thoughts on the elections, only to be told that they were more interested in telling me how prices are rocketing and how stallholders are charging far more than the government-set standards.

I got the same sense from people wherever I went, be it the wide leafy boulevards of the capital Islamabad or the crowded back-alleys of nearby Rawalpindi. The elections are passing people by and they have bigger concerns.

Many are worried about the government. The coalition that's running the country has fallen apart, divided over reinstating the sacked chief justice. The Taliban in the semi-autonomous tribal border region are getting stronger, bringing their fight to cities as the government bombs their mountain hideouts.

But don't get me wrong: everyone we met had strong opinions. From my tiny random sampling, about half backed Zardari.

When I met with Mushadid Hussain, an ally of the ousted president who is one of two candidates running against Zardari, he told me he was twice as popular as his opponent. His platform for election, he explained, was as "Mr. Squeaky Clean" (his words, not mine). He told me Pakistan has been run for far too long by a political elite bent on keeping power at any cost while lining their pockets at the same time. His strength, he said, was coming from a humble middle-class background.

Nobody I met was holding their breath for such dynamic change. Rather it is perhaps the international community, and specifically the United States, that could have most to gain in the short term if Zardari is elected.

Of the three candidates he has a reputation for being the most pro-West and secular. The information minister told me the country will do more to take on the Taliban along the region neighboring Afghanistan, from where, American officials say, insurgents have a safe haven from which to target U.S. troops over the border.

Indeed, analysts here say the PPP-led government is already doing more than President Musharraf to confront the growing Taliban threat - and more importantly win popular support to do it.

Talat Masood is a quietly-spoken former Pakistani army general. Fifteen minutes with him is an education. A whole evening would have been wonderful, but when we met this week - hours after U.S. troops launched their first publicly acknowledged ground raid inside Pakistan - we were both pressed for time.

In the few minutes we had, however, he conveyed his concerns about the raid that Pakistani officials were saying had killed women and children. Masood explained how Musharraf, whom the US had counted on to beat the Taliban, had only ever told his countrymen the battle was a U.S. problem, part of the "war on terror."

In contrast the new government, Masood told me, is beginning to change the argument and persuade Pakistanis that the Taliban threaten their security and that Pakistan needs to take them on for its own stability.

What worried him, he said, was how the opposition, religious parties and the militants would use the civilian deaths against the government, not only undermining the battle against the Taliban but also threatening the stability of the weak new government.

That was two days ago. Like many people here I've been somewhat surprised at reports of two more U.S. missile strikes, apparently killing civilians along the border. Although we cannot get attributable confirmation from officials, or travel to the area to find out for ourselves, the many independent TV channels here have given the reports plenty of airtime.

The perception here, if not the reality, is that in the three days leading up to a hugely important moment in Pakistan's history, the United States has killed innocent civilians while the man who might be able to help them is trying to be elected president.

Perhaps the storm clouds this morning were an appropriate metaphor after all - only less about Saturday and more about the months ahead.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - It's been over a year since I've been in Pakistan.

For a long time I couldn't get a visa: my reporting on former President Musharraf's failed policies to take on the Taliban had apparently won me powerful enemies, Pakistani insiders told me. But that's all changed now.

The former military dictator is out of power and the new government says it wants to open its doors to all reporters. Political leadership isn't the only thing that's changed. When I was last here spring 2007 the Taliban were a growing problem in the border region, now they are much stronger and the government is waging an increasingly violent war against them.

When I pick up the daily news papers here the headlines are dominated by reports of pro-government tribes taking on the Taliban, government jets bombing Taliban hideouts. It was never this way before.

But lest I convey the wrong image here that the government is winning handily, senior officials tell me they are deeply concerned about progress in this fight. There is a feeling despite their efforts they are only treading water, not beating the Taliban. The big challenge they tell me is getting popular support for a war Musharraf only ever characterized as an extension of the U.S. war on terror. To win, officials tell me, they need to sell the message to Pakistanis, particularly those in the Afghan border region that this fight is their fight. That Pakistan is not blindly fighting the war on terror for the United States but is tackling a very real threat to its own stability and future.

Two ministers and a High Commissioner all told me nothing undermines those efforts more than U.S. air strikes in Pakistan. So when we started getting reports U.S. troops had come by helicopter and conducted a ground attack inside Pakistan it was clear reaction there would be an angry official reaction.

When the foreign minister issued a statement "strongly condemning the assault" calling it "unacceptable" a "gross violation of Pakistan's territory" and a "grave provocation" I was somewhat surprised when a retired Pakistani army general here told me the anger expressed could have been far greater.

He told me it was the first time he'd heard reports of U.S. ground troops in such an attack in Pakistan. It forced him, he said, to consider something most Pakistanis might find hard to swallow, perhaps the new government, eager to bolster their grip on power and secure U.S. support had signaled an increased willingness for U.S. troops to conduct cross-border operations. If it were true, he said, it's so sensitive it would never be announced. The government would always have plausible deniability.

I'm certainly not getting any hints of such a deal from officials, although they all convey with a very real passion an extreme dislike for the Taliban.

What's clear now I'm back in Pakistan: the dynamic is far more fluid than before I left, after all only today the prime minister's armored limo was shot up on a busy highway.

The stakes could not be higher, the government is still fragile, the Taliban getting stronger, I'm in no doubt any perceived mistakes by the new leaders will be exploited by their enemies, military and political. And that could directly impact the United States if what little gains have been achieved against the Taliban leech away as support for the government falls.

Everyone here is telling me now is the time for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States to accept this is a regional war, trust each other, work together, to defeat a common enemy.

What's worrying me, we've heard all this before, and I see little indication the compromises necessary to achieve such cooperation have even entered public dialogue, never mind won popular support, let alone still show any sign of implementation.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELHI, Afghanistan – I normally don't worry too much going out on patrols in Afghanistan or Iraq.  I trust the troops to be doing their job to the hilt. I mentally rehearse what I should do in case of ambush or IED, check my medical kit, tourniquets etc are in order and accessible and that's it, we set off. I'm not fatalistic, I know there are risks and I know we are doing all we can do to mitigate against them.

Robertson was embedded with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – A Company 5th Battalion

I've been on scores, possibly hundreds of foot and vehicle patrols over the years. None are routine, none are the same. You tense up as you leave the base gates, calculate when you should be back, look around, pace yourself for what's to come.

That's how it was when we left FOB Delhi with Captain Ross Boyd and his troops from the ‘Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – A Company 5th Battalion.' Many came from just outside Glasgow, Scotland, where I lived 20 years ago. There's a comfort in hearing their accents, good lads, hard workers, the salt of the earth.

It must have been around 6 p.m. and still incredibly hot. I recognized the first little hill we passed. JTAC hill where Prince Harry was famously filmed firing a heavy machine gun and calling in airstrikes on the Taliban a few months ago.

I knew then we were going in to the heart of the former battlefield. Not quite Paschendale or the Somme, but the bomb craters were big and many of the trees shredded and dead just like those old black and white World War I photos.

We had to follow a Royal Engineer with a metal detector. A soldier told me a story of how on one patrol one of their troop triggered a mine, another soldier panicked stepped out of line, he too went down. In a matter of minutes they'd gone from tactical patrol to two men down, stuck in a mine field.

Our instructions were clear, if anyone hits a mine or IED, we would drop to the ground right were we were. Don't move, await instruction. And so we crept across the fields.

My mind felt sharp, electric, ready to respond. It was almost no surprise when an IED was found.

Sitting in an old Taliban trench waiting for the bomb disposal team I discovered one of the soldiers was a friend of a friend, small world. Captain Boyd was worried. He was the one who cleared the soil from the IED with his bayonet. It can't be easy with your face so close to much explosives but that wasn't what was troubling him. He was having a smoke to calm his nerves and was troubled by the fact now there was a TV camera there his mother might see him smoking.

Like I said a few lines above I don't normally worry on such patrols. But now it was dark, I mean pitch black. We had no lights, so as we walked single file, widely spaced back through the old battlefield I must admit I felt somewhat exposed.

Had I strayed from the tracks of the man in front, had he strayed from the man in front of him. It was a long line and logic was taking me to a bad place, so I dropped those thoughts, concentrated on not falling over and getting through the thorn bushes unscathed.

In the dark I felt the heavy deep sand of the track. FOB Delhi was getting closer. Four hours later we get back, but it felt like it could have been four days.

I didn't tell him but I think Captain Boyd's mother will be happy just to know her son is in one piece doing a great job. The odd cigarette for saving lives, even in today's politically correct world, can't be a bad trade.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Kabul is greener than I last saw it. I first glimpsed the bright emeralds as the plane lurched towards the sprawling airport. The normally dry, dirt brown fields fresher, it felt, than I'd ever seen.Outside the terminal the tree branches bending in the gathering afternoon wind shone, vibrant as a newly hand waxed car. Not a cloud in the sky. I couldn't help but feel good.

Dirt, dust, confusion: that's the Kabul I left six months ago.

Now the city feels clean. On our way to the hotel a cyclist sails close by, looks in our creaky minivan, smiles and speeds away. Can this really be Kabul?

Across the road, billowing in the breeze, a woman struggling against the tugging folds of her bright blue burka pulls a child's hand to keep him moving. I try not to be shocked by the garment, the wearing of which was enforced under Taliban rule. There is no mistaking this is the Afghan capital, but it does feel different.

I want to put my finger on it. Is it that the cheap stores are brighter, the pot-holed roads a fraction less bumpy, the police, not younger just more numerous and better uniformed? Is there an air of optimism it didn't have before? Maybe.

How quickly these feelings fleeted. Barely four hours in our hotel and we discover the Taliban have issued a direct threat against it, starting that day for the next 48 hours. Such is the credible weight of their propaganda these days that we quickly move out.

Rumors we quickly discover are rife. One of the latest doing the rounds is that Westerners are now targets for kidnappers. For money or political zeal, whatever wind was in my sails when I blew in to town is rapidly emptying.

Was the threat real? We don't know. The 48 hours are up and the hotel hasn't blown up yet.

In the south Taliban tactics are worrying locals. This is a people with a better arsenal of war memories than almost any other. Thirty years of conflict have dulled expectations but sharpened reflexes. The massive Taliban jailbreak last weekend has put everyone on edge.

Taliban attacks are becoming, bigger, bolder, more complex, more deadly and more innovative. In a new first, a suicide bomber jumped from a building onto the roof of a passing coalition patrol. Studying the form of the local bad guys isn't a pastime anymore - it's becoming a mater of survival.

When NATO and Afghan soldiers finished chasing the Taliban out of the Aranghadab valley this week they told famers they could go back to their villages. Those who did went on foot. They know better than to think the Taliban have left without laying mines.

President Hamid Karzai gets kudos for booting the Taliban out so quickly. But many Taliban ran away and everyone in the Aranghadab knows they'll be back to fight another day.

The talk in Kabul is that Karzai's popularity is flagging and that he needs the boost. He wants to win presidential elections next year. Up here they call him Mayor of Kabul because, they say, that's about as far as his power goes. His enemies number far more than the Taliban.

I've always loved Kabul; now it's greener that's easier. But as the words of the old proverb were meant to imply, so life should now be better. Quite simply it's not.

Fear is growing.