For all the recent talk about an "axis of evil" and a widening war against terrorism, the United States still has a lot of difficult and dangerous work to do in and around Afghanistan. Before turning too much attention to Iraq, Georgia, the Philippines or any other target, the Bush administration needs to complete its first and most important task in the new war.

Much has been accomplished in Afghanistan. The Taliban regime has been overthrown and replaced by a government that has a chance to bring peace and progress to that ruined land. However, President Hamid Karzai's fragile coalition will need intensive military and economic help before it can establish itself.

The Kandahar region and other vital sections of Afghanistan are still effectively controlled by traditional warlords hostile to Karzai. In the shadows of what Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, calls a "murky and troublesome" situation, surviving fragments of the al-Qaida terrorist network could reorganize.

Franks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top U.S. officials have opposed any expansion of the 4,000-strong international security force now operating only in Kabul. They correctly believe that Afghanistan's long-term security requires the development of a national Afghan army, but even optimists predict that building a competent and loyal military will take years. In the meantime, Afghanistan's stability -- and our own protection from the terrorist cells that have operated within Afghanistan -- may require a broader international peacekeeping presence.

Strategically, establishing a stable government in Afghanistan is only a means to an end: decontaminating the environment in which anti-American terrorist organizations can flourish. President Bush originally promised that Osama bin Laden would be captured "dead or alive." But bin Laden -- and much of the rest of the al-Qaida network -- is still at large. By the Pentagon's own estimates, no more than one-third of al-Qaida's leaders have been killed or captured since our military operation began.

Accounting for bin Laden and his top henchmen is of much more than symbolic importance. There are troubling signs that vestiges of al-Qaida are still capable of organized acts of terror -- in some cases, with the apparent complicity of elements of Pakistan's security forces. The kidnapping and execution of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is believed to have been part of a larger plot hatched by Jaish-e-Muhammad, a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida and Pakistani intelligence. U.S. analysts see growing evidence that Jaish-e-Muhammad and like-minded groups are working together in an effort to topple the government of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Since Sept. 11, Musharraf has taken some important steps to aid the United States and sever his government's longstanding associations with Islamic terrorists. In some respects, however, ensuring a stable and friendly government in Pakistan is as problematic as building a new society from the ground up in Afghanistan. Both of those vital tasks need to be much closer to success before U.S. leaders start refocusing the war on terrorism on other corners of the globe.

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