Russians fly into Kabul

Russian military transporters carrying "technicians" - assumed to be special forces - and trucks have flown into Kabul and set up camp while British troops remain isolated outside the city.

Their arrival - 12 years after they were last driven out - has revived memories of Rudyard Kipling's Great Game, the Anglo-Russian rivalry for control of Afghanistan during the 19th century.

The Russians landed unannounced last night in 12 military transport aircraft at Kabul's civil airport. Their planes disgorged 88 men in smart blue uniforms, plus jeeps, equipment and 14 trucks. Officially, their mission is to provide "humanitarian help". Unofficially, they are here to plant the flag.

Russia's deputy emergencies minister, Yuri Brazhnikov, said in Moscow that these "technicians" - thought to be soldiers - would begin working on "humanitarian" tasks, including mine clearance and aid delivery. "We need to . . . establish what specifically the Afghan population needs," he said. The advance Russian group, due to expand to a total of 200, "will most likely work on a permanent basis, while its members will rotate", said Mr Brazhnikov.

The Russians pulled their humiliated troops out of Afghanistan in 1989 and closed their embassy in 1992 when former puppet president Mohammad Najibullah fell to the Mujahideen. The Russians had tried to keep a grip on Afghanistan by invading in 1979 to shore up the communist regimes of Barbrak Kamal and then Najibullah.

It was a brutal episode, often referred to as Russia's Vietnam, in which more than 14,000 Russian soldiers were killed. Some died in terrible fashion. Tanks crew were caught and skinned during a battle for Herat.

Today the Russians can be seen racing about the capital in their trucks. Meanwhile, 20 miles away, the Royal Marines remain stuck at Bagram airbase, a shattered mine-infested ruin, where they have been since 15 November.

They flew in as part of a 6,000-strong force which was to expected to follow. But the Marines found their path blocked by the rebel Northern Alliance, which has confined them to Bagram ever since.

The Russians have granted full diplomatic recognition to the Northern Alliance regime in Kabul. Moscow said last week that the government of Alliance president Burhanuddin Rabbani was the legitimate administration of Afghanistan. In return, the Russians get to be the first foreigners into Kabul.

Britain fears Mr Rabbani's decision to pack key ministries and his army commands with ethnic Tajiks will alienate the other ethnic groups who share city, and could spark civil unrest. London has now ordered the bulk of the 6,000 men waiting in British bases to stand down.

Today a group of thicknecked Russian officers in drab grey civilian wear breakfasted in some style at a window table with spotless tablecloth at the city's Intercontinental Hotel.

Meanwhile, 20 miles north, the Marines endured another day of bangers and beans in the Bagram mess tent.

London claimed last week the 100-strong Royal Marines contingent, which includes SAS and SBS special forces soldiers, was on an unspecified humanitarian mission. But the United Nations immediately shot down that idea, saying it had no need of a British-held airbase because thousands of tonnes of aid are now arriving from Pakistan and Uzbekistan in road convoys.

One senior UN source said he believed the British were sent as part of an embryonic peacekeeping force but UN bureaucrats are terrified of setting up such a force in so hostile a country. Even attempts by the British to organise a Bagram open day for the world's press have got nowhere. The original idea was to let the media see that the Marines are not starving but dates have been repeatedly scrubbed, with the Northern Alliance in no mood to be nice.

But Britain is sticking to its policy that a new government must include all parties, apart from the Taliban, if it wants recognition. Thus our new Man In Kabul, Stephen Evans, used his first press conference outside the newly re-opened British embassy to explain that he was not in fact the ambassador, and that this building is not really the embassy.

In lieu of a new all-party government, Mr Evans will remain only HM Representative, and the embassy will be called something else - though nobody has yet decided what.

The Russians have no such problems, and their technicians have already begun work fixing their own dilapidated embassy building, now home to hundreds of Afghan refugees.

It is all very different from the Victorian era, when a stream of plucky army officers and adventurersset out to Afghanistan, intent on playing the Great Game. In those days, small teams of these men crossed the Khyber pass, persuading or bribing mountain tribes to side with London. They headed off Russia's expansion through central Asia, making Afghanistan a buffer between Moscow and British India. Kipling wrote in Kim: "Now I shall go far and far into the North, playing the Great Game."

US troops are now also in Kabul, with marines arranging security for the refurbishment of their own badly damaged embassy compound. The Americans have gained entry by offering the Northern Alliance something tangible - B52s and hundreds of marines.

There is just one silver lining in all this for London: the French are experiencing similar difficulties trying to get their special forces into Mazari-Sharif. Like the British, they refuse to offer either diplomatic recognition or firepower to the Alliance - and they have been refused permission to fly in more than a handful of troops.

Marines plan final push
Taliban bandits kill journalist