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Balancing royalism with the region's often virulent strain of Islamic fundamentalism won't be easy. The giant, blue-domed mosque in the centre of Khost was started by the region's most dominant strongman, Jalaluddin Haqqani, who has had a long friendship with Osama bin Laden.
Afghan military and intelligence sources say that Haqqani is now in hiding just across the border in Pakistan, but scheming to return to his old fiefdom, particularly if he suspects that King Zahir won't ever come back to Afghanistan.
Copyright 2002 The Christian Science Monitor
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