At this spartan combat outpost in the heart of Helmand province, US Marines are preparing for what may be their toughest fight yet. Under the cover of darkness, they will push out to take up positions for a battle that they hope will break up a key Taliban stronghold in what is currently one of the most dangerous regions in the country. For the moment, though, their job is to rest up and dodge the 124-degree heat, waiting for the go-ahead while they attend to the rituals of war in the windy high desert. Marines sleep outside on the ground or on the hoods of humvees parked in the middle of opium poppy fields. Sand penetrates everything, so Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Justin Carter cleans his bullets with baby wipes to make sure they are free from grit that could cause his rifle to jam. Cpl. Brandon Karana, a forward scout and former logger, pulls his rifle apart and scrubs it with a toothbrush. He holds it up to inspect his handiwork. "I hope I don't have to fire this thing," he says.

A crisis meeting of Pakistan's new coalition Government has been warned that it could lose control of the North West Frontier Province, which is believed to hold most of its nuclear arsenal. The warning came yesterday from the coalition leader, who, although he is part of the new Government, is regarded as having the closest links to al-Qa'ida and Taliban militants sweeping through the region. Maulana Fazlur Rehman bluntly told his colleagues: "The North West Frontier province is breaking away from Pakistan. That is what is happening. That is the reality." This came just days before new Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's scheduled meeting with US President George W. Bush to discuss al-Qa'ida and Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan. Reports last night said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, regarded as having unparalleled insight into the mood of the three million tribesmen in the NWFP, and leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, was backed in his assessment by members of the coalition Government from the Awami National Party, which rules in the province's capital, Peshawar.

It was once known as the Parrot’s Beak, a strategic jut of Pakistan that the American-backed mujahedeen used to carry out raids on the Russians just over the border into Afghanistan. That was during the cold war. Now the area, around the town of Parachinar, is near the center of the new kind of struggle. The Taliban have inflamed and exploited a long-running sectarian conflict that has left the town under siege. The Taliban, which have solidified control across Pakistan’s tribal zone and are seeking new staging grounds to attack American soldiers in Afghanistan, have sided with fellow Sunni Muslims against an enclave of Shiites settled in Parachinar for centuries. The population of about 55,000 is short of food. The fruit crop is rotting, residents say, and the cost of a 66-pound bag of flour has skyrocketed to $100.

NATO forces on Saturday fired on a vehicle that wouldn't stop at a checkpoint in Afghanistan's volatile south, killing four civilians and wounding three others, the alliance said. Civilian casualties has been a sore point between Afghanistan's government and international forces that operate here. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has implored NATO and US-led coalition troops to avoid killing civilians, whose deaths undermine support for his already weak central government.