PESHAWAR, Oct 3: In the backdrop of rapidly changing situation in the region, an elaborate plan is being hammered out in Peshawar to topple the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan and bring back the former king Zahir Shah.

The city has become the hub of activity to trigger an anti-Taliban uprising in Afghanistan, a development that brings to mind one of the world’s most covert operations launched against the communist regime in the early 1980s.

“We want to start our activity in different places all at once, and not from one point so Taliban could put pressure on us...that will be like 20-30 different places,” former mujahideen commander, Abdul Haq, who is masterminding the latest developments in Afghanistan, told Dawn.

On arriving in Peshawar last Wednesday, Haq began meeting tribal elders, commanders who had fought alongside him against the Soviets, some of whom are now allied with the Taliban.

An Afghan commander said that several commanders in eastern Afghanistan had pledged to join the uprising against the Taliban. So far, those who have decided to switch sides include some twelve commanders, and a senior Taliban operative in one of the eastern provinces in Afghanistan.

“There will be a chain reaction”, the commander said.

Afghan analysts have noticed signs of growing public uneasiness and unrest in Taliban-controlled eastern provinces of Afghanistan. They say that the Taliban are fast losing control over these areas and an uprising in one of the provinces could easily spread to another. These analysts say that the anti-Taliban uprising could start in the mainly-Pukhtun belt of eastern, southeastern and central Afghanistan. As a chain reaction, the provinces in northern Afghanistan including Kunduz and Takkhar could also fall to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. “I can see Taliban rolling back to Kandahar,” an Afghan analyst said.

Significantly, Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Monday said that days of the Taliban appeared numbered, adding he was re-evaluating his country’s policy towards the puritanical militia.

The analysis seems to corroborate reports that the Taliban are taking out their heavy weapons and transporting them to southwestern Kandahar from where they are then taken to Uuruzgan, native province of Taliban supreme leader Mulla Muhammad Omar, which one analyst said, could be used as a fall-back position by the Taliban fighters.

In a radio address last week, Mulla Omar warned that the Taliban could retreat to the mountains to fight against the former king, who lives in self-exile in Rome since 1973, if his (Omar’s) government was toppled. “I think, the Taliban have mentally accepted the fact that they may not remain in power,” an Afghan watcher said.

Latest reports from Kabul speak of renewed exodus from the capital. “People are leaving, shops are closed and city itself is almost empty again,” an eyewitness said on phone from Kabul.

Haq warned that any attack by the US at this point in time could actually torpedo his whole efforts. He said that the Afghans were yearning for a change and willing to rise for the former king. He said the US by attacking Afghanistan would get nothing nor would it be able to achieve her objective of getting the Saudi dissident.

“What the US saw in Iraq war, firing laser-guided missiles, hitting bridges. We do not have any bridges, we don’t have any infrastructure. There is no command centre they can bomb. Afghanistan has millions and millions of mountains and they are full of caves and places to hide we made against the Russians. With bombing, you cannot find these people. They (US) have to come with a ground force to look around and get behind every mountain, there will be four or five soldiers killed every day. They will have lots of body bags,” he remarked.

The best option for the US, he said, was to work on a long-term solution, to help build a new political structure for the country, which would then close down Osama’s terrorist networks in Afghanistan.

Afghan commanders and analysts say that the uprising could take place from two to four weeks. “Maximum, it should not take more than four weeks,” analysts say.

But a cautious Commander Abdul Haq said that this could take time between weeks and months.