DUSHANBE (Tajikistan): The faint rumble of an approaching war is transforming this city. It has suddenly awakened from years of isolation to find itself nearly the centre of the world’s attention. Vans stuffed with foreign diplomats tour the city’s Soviet-era monuments. Black Mercedes with flags flapping on fenders fly down the streets, passing jitney vans and rattletrap taxis. And there are the rumours that US troops are on their way. Or that they are already here. Or that an attack on Afghanistan is about to begin.

The city should be having a season of quiet, after years of strife. There is ordinarily little reason for foreigners to be here. Tajikistan is desperately poor, isolated by some of the world’s tallest mountains and smothered every year about this time by what Tajiks call the “Afghan winds” - a boiling dust cloud that blows in from the south, blots out the sun for days and brings a choking cough to everyone outdoors.

Tajikistan has the sudden importance that geography brings: The country borders parts of northeast Afghanistan controlled by the Northern Alliance, the opposition forces that have been battling the ruling Taliban since the mid-1990s.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, the US recognized that the alliance could play an important role in organizing or carrying out military strikes within Afghanistan. There seems little doubt that the US and the alliance will at least coordinate military efforts.

Russia, which has emerged as an important US ally, is the key intermediary. Tajikistan was once a Soviet republic, and Russia wields enormous influence here. Russian troops patrol Tajikistan’s frontier with Afghanistan, and Russia has promised to supply food and arms to the Northern Alliance.

Tajiks do not seem worried about the threatened conflict beyond their borders. They feel protected by Moscow, and the 25,000 Russian troops at the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border. International aid officials, though, warn of a potential catastrophe. If the war goes badly for the Northern Alliance, they say, tens of thousands of ethnic Tajiks may flee north into the hardest areas hit by the drought.

An uncontrolled frontier, officials say, could also invite the dumping of tons of Afghan heroin onto world markets. “This is a border that needs to be completely controlled,” said Matthew Kahane, the UN’s resident coordinator here. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Baltimore Sun.