In August 1984 all mujahidin party offices were ordered out of Peshawar because of an escalating climate of violence, including bombings of the offices and attempted assassinations of prominent Afghans. Mujahidin and Pakistani intelligence sources blame much of the violence on the Afghan government intelligence service, but it is also true that there are ongoing feuds between mujahidin factions, some of which occasionally spill over onto the battlefield.

Now based just outside the city limits are a number of political parties regarded by Western observers as moderate. Its leaders, though seeking an Islamic government for Afghanistan, have closer ties to the West than the opposing group of fundamentalist parties.

Many disillusioned mujahidin say that the parties fail either to supply arms or to achieve political unity. "I will join whatever party gives me arms," said one fighter in Baluchistan. "I am here in this refugee camp only because no party will give me arms." Some mujahidin look hopefully toward leadership evolving inside Afghanistan, such as the loose "internal alliance" of young regional commanders who communicate and coordinate by courier.

Beyond the refugee camps that fringe Peshawar is the Khyber Pass, the historic passage between the uplands of Central Asia and the plains of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. Today the Khyber, except for a strip 50 feet (15 meters) wide on either side of the road administered by the Pakistani government, remains under the control of local Pashtun tribes. Tribal areas are generally off-limits to foreigners, but photographer Steve McCurry and I get special permission from the governor. We are accompanied by two local officials and an escort of 15 khassadars, members of a tribal militia. The officials grow increasingly nervous as the afternoon wanes. They inform us that if we do not reach the settled districts by dusk, the government cannot answer for our safety.

On the way through the pass, on a winding dirt road beyond the limits of government control, a pickup truck bounces along in a cloud of dust, while a train of camels lopes on unconcerned. They may be smuggling cloth, untaxed cigarettes, whiskey, or raw opium to be processed into heroin. Pakistan, despite government efforts to reduce poppy growing, is among the world's major exporters of heroin. (See "The Poppy," by Peter T. White, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, February 1985.) Much of the opium, 400 metric tons in 1983, comes from beyond the border in Afghanistan, where it is the most profitable remaining cash crop. Before the Islamic revolution in Iran, most opium was exported to Iran. With that market restricted, growers have set up labs in Pakistan, and more recently inside Afghanistan, to make more profitable heroin for export to the West. According to the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration, most of it passes by the town of Landi Kotal, near the head of the Khyber Pass.

Poppy cultivation is a tradition in certain families, and a source of income tribesmen are reluctant to give up. In previous years, both in Afghanistan and in Pakistani tribal areas, I saw fields of poppies, which many here referred to jokingly as "tulips."

THERE IS A CHANGE in the air in Peshawar this year, and I sense a turning point. Pakistan is saturated with refugees, and compassion is drying up. Pakistanis, who opened their country in the name of Muslim hospitality and the Pashtun tradition of panah, or asylum, are now faced with the largest refugee population in the world.

Despite the number of refugees and their length of stay, there has been little tension between refugees and locals. These refugees are the freest in the world. They are allowed to come and go, even to work and trade, as long as they own no immovable property. Nonetheless, there are anxieties about the long-term effect of so many refugees on the culture, economy, and security of Pakistan. The administration of 2.4 million registered refugees, at a cost of a million dollars a day, is an enormous undertaking. The Pakistani government says it pays nearly half the cost of refugee assistance, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other countries and international agencies absorbing the rest. The United States is the largest contributor to the UNHCR program in Pakistan (some 20 million dollars in 1984).