But not everyone saw it like this. The northerners grew frightened. Some had grown fat on Western money in government, while others simply detested the Taliban for the same reasons we do. Last summer, Karzai sacked his anti-Taliban spy chief Amrullah Saleh to ease the way for talks. Saleh railed against this, insisting that “there must not be a deal with the Taliban. Ever”. Along with other veterans from the Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan, he’s emerged as a political force against reconciliation, drawing crowds of thousands with his denunciations of the Taliban as Pakistani stooges.