In fact, the rapid advance of anti-Taliban forces has in many ways complicated the task of getting aid to those Afghans most in danger of starving. Relief workers face many of the same obstacles they did when the Taliban dominated the country–winter being the most pressing. In the so-called hunger belt running across the highlands of seven northern provinces, the survival of up to 3 million people depends on the arrival of food shipments before mid-December; some 700,000 of those are already malnourished and living in mountainous areas that could become inaccessible any day. Camps along the borders of Iran, Tajikistan and Pakistan continue to be flooded with refugees flee-ing the fighting. At the same time, the chaos and confusion created by the stunning military turnaround have stalled efforts to rush food aid into the most affected areas. “It’s a very messy transition,” says Khaled Mansour, the World Food Program spokesman in Islamabad. “Things are very dicey up there.”

Despite the Taliban’s apparent willing-ness to retreat without much of a fight from many areas, scattered resistance continues to hold up relief efforts. In the key northern city of Mazar-e Sharif–the first domino to fall and a critical hub for aid shipments throughout northern Afghanistan–the United Nations reported continued gun battles between Taliban and Northern Alliance fighters, and even between alliance factions themselves last week. Unidentified gunmen looted 90 tons of food from a WFP warehouse in the city and stole several vehicles. The offices of several NGOs were ransacked: the WFP lost all of its comput-er and communications equipment, while looters even ripped out the window frames from the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In the capital of Kabul, a UNHCR warehouse was emptied of 1,400 tents and other aid supplies.

Farther south in Pakistan, where many aid organizations relocated after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, truckdrivers have refused to cross into Afghanistan until the situa-tion stabilizes. More than 60 WFP trucks sit idle at the Khyber Pass as drivers wait for security guarantees. Northern Alliance leaders, says Mansour, “are making all the right noises,” promising to safeguard aid shipments in territory they control. But earlier in the week a 10-truck convoy carrying supplies for UNICEF simply disappeared in alliance-held territory in the north. Two trucks and six Afghan employees remain missing; the two truckdrivers are feared dead. (In the south, where in many cases Pashtun warlords have taken over from Taliban authorities, the situation remains even more uncertain.) Roads throughout the country are now littered not only with mines, but with baseball-size unexploded “bomblets” scattered by weeks of intense U.S. bombing.

Even along Afghanistan’s borders, where hungry refugees are most accessible to international aid workers, the Taliban collapse has made relief efforts more dangerous. Before the fall of the western city of Herat, the Makaki refugee camp on the Iranian border was already riddled with Taliban fighters who mingled with its more than 6,000 civilians. “These people are being used as human shields. The Taliban want to hide themselves among the people to prevent U.S. attacks,” UNHCR spokesman Mohammad Nouri said two weeks ago. In the last week, many more disguised Taliban cadres have reportedly sought shelter in the camp. Other armed men, presumed to be Taliban sympathizers, have been spotted at the Site 9 camp along the border with Tajikistan, although by the end of last week the situation was safe enough for UNICEF to deliver water tanks, purification tablets and soap to refugees in the area.

Yet simply getting aid into the country obviously doesn’t solve the problem. The United Nations shipped 30,000 tons of food into Afghanistan in the first 12 days of November. But, says Mansour, “we can’t say that we are succeeding until we see the bags of food actually getting into the hands of the people who need them.” At the Uzbek border crossing of Termez last Wednesday, the United Nations was able to send a single barge loaded with 50 tons of flour and five tons of aid supplies upriver to the Afghan ferry terminal of Hairaton. The route could ultimately be used to ship 20,000 tons of food aid a month, or 40 percent of the total food needed for the entire country. But at the moment, Hairaton has no electricity or working cranes. Heavy sacks must be offloaded by hand because water levels in the Amu Darya river are so low that trucks cannot drive onto the barges. And with the Taliban’s having stolen most of the aid-organization vehicles in Mazar-e Sharif, relief workers will have to rent trucks and taxis to distribute the flour. The Uzbek government could smooth operations by repairing and opening the Friendship Bridge, which spans the Amu Darya. But so far authorities have refused to do so, citing fears of infiltration by Taliban stragglers and fighters from the revolutionary Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Still, with each military victory by anti-Taliban forces, the humanitarian picture brightens. Now that alliance soldiers have taken Kabul, for instance, relief supplies meant for the Panjshir Valley can travel through the capital rather than the snowbound Anjuman Pass. A few refugees have begun to return from camps along the border, while aid officials hope that other needy Afghans can be persuaded to stay in their home provinces if aid begins to flow quickly. Ultimately, what would improve the situation most is a stable political arrangement within the country that would allow the free movement of food and aid workers. That remains a distant prospect, but one that is much closer now than a week ago.