'The people waved and cheered.'

I came to Kabul in a borrowed taxi cab today to be greeted by thousands of cheering Afghans.

The main streets of this city are packed with people talking and cheering. Jeeps and yellow and white painted taxis drive by at high speed with horns blaring.

I entered the city by walking across from the front line positions of the Northern Alliance army which consists of two dusty armoured personnel carriers blocking the road. Hundreds of people from Kabul began arriving, shouting that the Taliban had fled.

The soldiers at first told me to stay back, but there were so many people arriving that I managed, with my translator, to slip through. Walking along the Salang Highway people kept stopping me, with one man grinning from ear to ear, shouting in perfect English: "Welcome to Kabul City."

And around the corner, there it was: the great city sparkling in the sunlight.

Then a stroke of luck, my translator recognised a face in the crowd, a young computer science teacher called Feridun. After wild embraces, Feridun turned to me and said in good English: "I have a taxi here, it belongs to my friend. Let me show you my city."

And we were off, in a battered taxi, racing down the highway towards the city centre. We passed crowds of people, and as they saw me in the back of the taxi, they began to wave and cheer. I felt like a conquering hero.

Feridun talked incessantly, telling me that the Taliban left the city at seven the night before. "They broke into the shops in the money market, they took all the money. There was some shooting too." There is shooting again today, but the heavy staccato machinegun bursts are what the Afghans euphemistically call celebratory fire.

As we drove through the former front line we stopped to give a lift to a Northern Alliance soldier, 51-year-old Mir Ziahadin. He couldn't stop talking, shouting excitedly that he had been fighting all night. Then he said: "Do you like this jacket," showing me his green anorak. "I killed an Arab for it. I found him wounded in a trench. I took his jacket off first, then I shot him. I killed him because he was a foreigner. If he was an Afghan, of course I would not kill him. We have to live together now."

The former front line is a churned mess of mud, broken timbers and rusting vehicles. Bombs have ripped huge holes in the road, tanks lie with their turrets torn off. But there are few dead: most of the Taliban fled last night. On the Salang Highway are five bodies, lying sprawled as if they have fallen over. They are so freshly dead the blood is still red. All have been shot, though whether in battle or by execution is unclear. Ziahadin jumps around them: "Two are Arab, three are Pakistani," he announces with glee.

Meanwhile, Alliance troops, in defiance of their orders, have begun to enter the city. Marching in groups of about 50 to one hundred, they have moved into the northern suburbs. The general commanding the checkpoint north of the city, General Basir Salang, insisted that orders forbade such a move, despite the fact it was taking place in front of him. "The orders from the Minister of Defence are that none of the soldiers go into the city," he said. "We might send some police in tomorrow, but that will depend on the United Nations." In fact groups of soldiers in pick-up trucks are already cruising the city. The thousands of people crowding the streets do not seem to mind, at least for now.

It is possible to have some sympathy for these soldiers. Weeks, and in some cases months of living rough have led this army to the gates of this great city. They are entitled to feel that for tonight they should sleep in a warm bed.

Driving around this city is to experience a series of vignettes.

First was the sight of a jeep load of soldiers intervening in an argument between a shop keeper and two men. As the soldiers brandished their guns the men ran. "They tried to steal from me!" shouted the shop keeper.

Around another corner, the house of a Taliban official has a gigantic hole in one corner, the result of a surgical strike.

In the blue sky a B-52 made an almost perfect circle with its trail as it prowled about. There are no targets today, and so, as if bored, the plane heaved itself away and flew off in the direction of the Indian Ocean.

Kabul today is in fact in a state of hiatus: Nobody is in command, but plenty are already jostling for position. They include portly former police colonel Ahmed Dullah. In 1996 he was stripped of his job by the incoming Taliban. At seven last night he claimed it back again. The trouble is, nobody recognises him. He arrived at the checkpoint into the city. "I am here to make my report," he said, panting after climbing a little hill. "Sector three is all quiet."

In fact, to be here is to experience one of those rare moments when normal rules are suspended. Here is a city without police, without a recognised government, without any of the authority and organisation that most people take for granted. For the moment, it is working fine: Spirits are high, the mood is buoyant, the hated "religious police" have gone. But a new law, of one sort of another, must move in fast.

Marching back to power
Celebrations in Kabul: pictures