A PEACE THAT TERRIFIES

By Anthony Spaeth

In Kabul's Malali High School for girls, the windows are broken, the desks are cracked, and posters on the wall warn of the dangers of land mines and unexploded bombs. But until last week, 500 girls still managed to study science, history, math and French in those crumbling classrooms despite a 4 1/2-year civil war raging around them. No longer. The war is just about over, and Kabul's new rulers, the Taliban, have firm notions about the peace: it will be piously, even pitilessly, Muslim. In that scheme there's no place for young women learning French. "I cry seeing the classrooms locked," says the school's caretaker. "A mullah accompanied by several armed Taliban came and demanded the keys. They told me the school would be turned into a madrasah," a religious school for boys.

A band of onetime seminarians and clerics who formed an army just two years ago, the Taliban now control 75% of a country torn by war, first during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation and then as various groups fought for control of the country. The Taliban were hailed as peace-bearing heroes when they captured the capital two weeks ago. In their first week the Taliban shut girls out of schools and ordered women workers from offices and hospitals. The shunning of women was impossible to ignore. At a press conference, two female foreign correspondents were forbidden to ask questions of the Acting Deputy Foreign Minister Shirmohammad Stanekzai, because, according to an aide, he "must not hear their voices." Meanwhile, men were given a month to grow beards, and the photographing of human figures--as well as certain buildings, military operations and "sensitive incidents"--was forbidden. Amnesty International claimed 1,000 people were jailed in what it called a reign of terror.

The Taliban acknowledged only 70 arrests for looting and defended their actions as necessary to transform Afghanistan into a devout Islamic state. But it is still a shadowy one. Last week the Taliban's leader, Maulana Mohammad Omar, a one-eyed former cleric who is also known as Commander of the Faithful, had yet to make an appearance, running the capital from his base 300 miles to the south in Kandahar. And the Taliban aren't finished fighting. The forces of ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani, led by former Army Chief Ahmad Shah Massoud, are holed up 31 miles north of Kabul in the isolated Panjshir Valley, and have blown up the road leading in. Rabbani is rumored to have fled to Iran. Even more intractable was General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord who controls a large tract of territory on the northeastern border.

The new government was recognized almost immediately by Pakistan. That move surprised few in Kabul, where it was widely believed that Islamabad has been quietly sending substantial support across the border to the Taliban--an allegation both sides deny. "Pakistan is not assisting the Taliban," Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told TIME last week. "If the Taliban could unite Afghanistan and end the factionalism, it will be a boon for the region." On the other hand, a Pakistan led by a female Prime Minister cannot be sanguine about a neighboring government exporting zealous, old-style Islamic ideals. For its part, the U.S. cares little who governs Afghanistan as long as it is governed and stable--and not led by radical Muslims. Indeed, Washington is planning low-level talks with Kabul.

Russia, however, views the prospect of a fundamentalist Islamic Afghanistan with undisguised alarm, particularly the projection of Taliban rule or influence into pro-Moscow Tajikistan, whose border with Afghanistan is already patrolled by Russian soldiers. Last week Boris Yeltsin sent his Prime Minister to a hurriedly arranged meeting of leaders from four former Soviet--and predominantly Muslim--republics in Central Asia. Security Chief Alexander Lebed announced that Russia should help prop up Rabbani, though it is hard to imagine a Russian return to Afghanistan.

Residents of Kabul were generally too cautious to express concern about the Taliban out loud, but they certainly had reason to wonder: at the first Taliban-attended Friday prayer meeting, soldiers forced passersby into mosques at gunpoint. At the Malali High School, Siad Bibi knew that her life had turned a terrible corner. She was a cleaner until the Taliban decreed that she could not leave her house, which is right next door, without her husband, who is old and ill. "Now I have no work. I can't go outside," she says. She adds that the situation is even worse for Kabul's estimated 25,000 widows, now officially jobless. "There were many widows who worked here," she said. "Now they can't leave their homes. I'm so scared."

--Reported by Alan Pearce/Kabul

With reporting by ALAN PEARCE/KABUL