DEATH OF A CITY

By DICK THOMPSON/KABUL

The pictures on these pages show a city being ground to dust. This is Kabul today, and no city has suffered more destruction in the '90s than the capital of Afghanistan. Along with the demise of the cold war, the departure of the Soviets in 1989 ended much of the interest of the U.S. and other outsiders. Shortly afterward, vicious, sustained civil war broke out. In the years since, five different armies have fought in Kabul's streets, battling from house to house, killing 45,000 in one six-month period. Jahannam, says the Koran, is a hellish place of "harrowing torment" where people are kept in "heavy fetters and a blazing fire." This is punishment for sinners in the afterlife; such a horror is not known on earth. Kabul must surely be close.

Everywhere soldiers have seeded the ground with land mines, the most in any city in the world, according to the U.N. Mohammed Ibrahim Warsag, Kabul's mayor, ticks off a list of further devastation. "Electricity system: destroyed. Water-supply system: destroyed. Public-transportation system: destroyed. Communications: destroyed. Sanitation system: destroyed. Roads torn up by tanks. And half a million people cannot get sufficient bread."

After the Soviets left, the Islamic fighters who opposed them--the mujahedin--separated into factions that turned on one another and the government. Last year a new group began knocking at the city's gates: the Taliban, an army of self-styled "students" of Islamic fundamentalism. Having repeatedly failed to take the capital, 8,000 Taliban are now camped on the high ground south, hurling rockets into the city. They announce themselves with the sound of a jet; a second of silence follows, then an explosion makes the earth tremble. It is not unusual for 15 to land in a day; some days see as many as 70.

As the rockets churn houses into rubble, families seek shelter in the ruins of abandoned neighborhoods, many of which contain minefields. Children are especially vulnerable, since they are sent to scavenge. Farhad, a boy of 10, offers a typical story: "Early in the morning, after studying in the mosque, I went for firewood. Because we are poor, we can't buy wood. I didn't know there are minefields. When I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital without my legs." The simplest impulse is perilous. Rahmat Khan, a school watchman, describes how a breeze blew his hat across a playground. He chased it, tripped a mine and lost both legs.

None of this is likely to end anytime soon. Professional peacemakers such as the U.N.'s put scant effort into ratcheting down the war; it is perceived as too complicated, too Islamic, too out of the way. The vacuum allows regional powers--Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and India--to back one side or another, prolonging the conflict as they seek to extend their influence. Such meddling infuriates Afghans, but some reserve a special anger for America. They believe the U.S. has turned its back on the country it once supported, indifferent to its suffering. "Those friends who armed us to the teeth didn't think what will happen in the future," says Zekria Bakhshi, a physician with the Red Cross. "Because the cold war was finished, they said, 'Let them kill each other.'"

--By Dick Thompson/Kabul, with reporting by Gerald Bourke/Islamabad

With reporting by GERALD BOURKE/ISLAMABAD