KABUL: He shuffles onto the terrace overlooking his rose garden and sinks into an armchair. He is dressed casually, in a leather jacket and loafers. His smile is weary, his voice barely audible. In a foreign airport, he would be easily mistaken for an elderly tourist.

All day long an endless stream of well-wishers files onto the stone patio to pay homage to this frail man of 87. Turbaned men kiss his hand and embrace him with tears in their eyes. Costumed schoolgirls shyly offer him bouquets. Aides hover protectively, and flak-jacketed soldiers ring the garden.

After nearly 30 years in exile, Mohammed Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan, is finally home and holding court.

“I am here to stay. I am your servant. With your help, I will do everything in my power to help bring unity and peace to our country,” Zahir Shah told delegation after delegation on Wednesday. Seated in a wooden gazebo, he spoke so softly that the visitors, facing him in rows of chairs, leaned forward intently to catch every word.

Two weeks after returning from Rome, Zahir Shah is the object of enormous devotion and respect from a wide spectrum of Afghans. Yet with no official portfolio and his role uncertain, the deposed monarch may ultimately prove incapable of bringing reconciliation to a country torn apart by two decades of war and still beset by factional feuding.

With his advanced age, unpretentious manner and lack of regal trappings, Zahir Shah is often addressed as “baba,” or grandfather. His visitors on Wednesday greeted him with reverence — and little apparent apprehension about the political divisions and security concerns that may impede his efforts at peacemaking.

Many visitors had simply come to pay their respects. But three members of the delegations that called on the former king on Wednesday were elders from Paktia province in southern Afghanistan, the scene of recurring armed clashes between tribal and militia leaders in which dozens of people have been killed in recent weeks.

Each of the groups begged Zahir Shah to use his influence to mediate an end to the feuding, which has severely challenged the already tentative authority of Afghanistan’s interim government. Now, the local armed conflict threatens to draw in US-led military forces, stationed here primarily to eliminate remnants of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

During Zahir Shah’s 40-year reign, his aides noted on Wednesday, warring ethnic or regional factions often turned to the king to mediate their disputes. He was respected for his impartiality, and his advice was often sufficient to quell the problem.

“He never took sides. His conscience is clear, and his name still carries a lot of weight,” said Zia Mojadedi, a member of the entourage that accompanied the former monarch from Rome, where he has lived for three decades. “Everyone expects him to unite the society and end all the hatred that has been created here.”

But many Afghan observers, including some of Zahir Shah’s closest supporters, acknowledged that Afghanistan’s political and social fabric has deteriorated so severely in recent years that his authority might be no match for the destructive ambitions of various armed factions that have little interest in power-sharing or in the nation’s future as a whole. —Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.