"The Pashtuns won't share power with anybody; that's the problem," he said in an interview at his headquarters on the front line near the Tajik border.

Russian troops now fire across the Tajik border into Afghanistan to hold off supporters of the ousted regime.

The Pentagon, in keeping with its public policy of describing only the previous day's strikes, would not confirm that targets near the Tajik border had been struck.

But along the 50-mile front that stretches from the Tajik border to the outskirts of Taliqan, the military campaign seems uneven.

Mr. Yeltsin declared that the Tajik border was effectively Russia's, a crucial bulwark against "Islamic fundamentalism" spreading through the region and into Russia itself.

After six months traversing Afghanistan's mountainous, often snow-covered terrain, they were turned back at the Tajik border.

And so it was at Chagatai, a rugged stretch of barren hills that form the front lines near the Tajik border.

We finally reached Denau, near the Tajik border, which has a very lively daily market and was a lot of fun.

Ay Khanom is a large training and supply base on the Tajik border, the conduit for almost all the military material entering Afghanistan.

Highway M41 goes south over the mountains from Osh to the Tajik border.