THE SECRET SHARER

By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE/MOSCOW

Tajikistan, the troubled former republic of the Soviet Union, where some 100,000 people have died in civil unrest since early 1992, is being drawn into the brutal war across its southern border in Afghanistan. Officials in Tajikistan as well as Moscow (which is propping up the Tajik government) say the southern town of Kulyab, the political stronghold of Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov, has become a major resupply base for Afghan forces opposed to the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic fighters who have taken control of much of Afghanistan in the past year. Sources have told TIME the military aid either comes directly from Russia or is being supplied by former Soviet Central Asian republics with Moscow's blessing. The equipment is loaded onto Afghan heavy-transport planes in Kulyab for the trip south. Last week half a dozen such Russian-built transports were sitting on the tarmac in Kulyab, some of them painted in camouflage. Much of the aid is going to a man who used to be the Soviet army's most feared adversary in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of the leaders of the forces combatting the Taliban. Russian officials acknowledge that Kulyab has become a "reserve airfield" for the anti-Taliban forces, but will not admit to providing military aid. Russia could stop the flow of arms if it wanted: a regiment of the Russian army's 201st Motorized Rifle Division is based only a few minutes' drive from the airport.

--By Paul Quinn-Judge/Moscow