President Bush visited Afghanistan today, praising the Government's efforts in building democracy. But Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor of The Times, reports from the south that in many areas little has changed since the Taleban fell.

"I think that President Bush couldn't come out to visit India and Pakistan without paying a visit to Afghanistan as well, but the situation in Kabul is far removed from that in other parts of the country.

"I suppose in comparative terms Afghanistan is a success story when you compare it with the disaster unfolding in Iraq. The political process so far has been fairly successful, but there are still huge obstacles to sort out here and the fact remains that, far from being a beaten force, the Taleban appears to be resurgent.

"The number of attacks, suicide bombings, roadside bombs and the campaign of intimidation against schools, government officials and so on, all that is rising. This battle is by no means finished yet.

"The most galling thing of all for the Americans must be that Osama Bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, are still at large. The operation is to be handed over to Nato in the coming weeks and months and yet the American mission is unfinished. Kabul appears pretty peaceful, successful, but much of the rest of the country has changed very little since the Americans arrived in 2001.

"The southern province of Helmand is a case in point. The British will be coming here later this year with a force of around 3,000 troops. This place has been pretty much untouched by foreign hands since the defeat of the Taleban almost five years ago.

"It's virtually lawless; there's a huge poppy-growing area accounting for a quarter of Afghan production, and the border with Pakistan to the south is pretty much open.

"This morning I was with the colonel in charge of the British contingent here, and attended a meeting with a local council. He was there to explain the reasons for the British mission, to help reconstruction and so on, but instead we just heard a long litany of problems.

"There is still no real infrastructure here, the farmers say they have to grow poppies to survive, and al-Qaeda and the suicide bombers are increasingly active.

"There has been more progress further north but the Pashtun areas such as Helmand remain suspicious of foreign intervention. I was in a market today and bought a cassette of songs praising Mullah Omar. That same cassette was being played loudly on a neighbouring stall and no-one minded.

"So whatever George Bush and Hamid Karzai say in Kabul, the truth is that the Government's writ simply doesn't run here."

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