Early morning in Jalalabad at the other end of the mountain. The crack of Kalashnikov fire and the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun fill the air. It is only some young Mujahideens larking around. Welcome to eastern Afghanistan.

It is more than a week since the Taliban fled town. In the narrow, choking streets of the bazaar, traders go about their daily business. Food is being cooked over open fires. The rattle of weapons goes hand in hand with the other, familiar, everyday sounds.

Teenage boys walk the streets with guns slung over the shoulders, ammunition belts stuffed with bullets carefully strapped to their bodies. Packs of armed men speed along the dusty roads in pick-up trucks.

There is a wild, menacing air and a feeling of lawlessness here. The Taliban are gone but there is no sign of a real peace or discipline in the city. With several Mujahideen groups waiting in the wings to whip power, it is a tinder box that could explode anytime.

If a post-Taliban regime is to work anywhere, it must work here. But it does not necessarily follow that the return of the Mujahideen will bring stability to Jalalabad.

People have not forgotten that it was these same men who brought chaos and violence pre-Taliban. Now the fear is they will bring it again. Just after the Taliban retreated the city last Wednesday week, several local commanders led their fighters into town.

Last weekend they sat down to talk in the governor's house. On Sunday, after hours of fractious talks, the jirga, which includes dozens of different groups, reached a fragile agreement.

The man selected to head the new administration is Haji Abdul Qadir the brother of Abdul Haq, the exiled opposition leader executed by the Taliban when he was captured in Afghanistan a month ago on a peace mission.

Qadir had been governor of this province, Nangarhar, of which Jalalabad is the capital, until he was ousted by the Taliban in 1996.

On Sunday he swept out of his palatial official residence to government buildings with his new cabinet to lower the Taliban flag. He promised to disarm the city and to bring back law and order.

But there are other warlords hungrily waiting in the wings, hungry for power, some with close ties to the Taliban. For the moment an uneasy calm prevails in the city, but the question is will it last.

The man who has taken over security is the most powerful and influential commander of them all, Hazarat Ali. He controls the biggest group of men. Third in the pecking order of powerful men in Jalalabad is Haji Hamman, who has been given charge of the military.

These men are remembered for the chaos of the pre-Taliban period.

This week our translator was stopped in his truck at a checkpoint manned by Hazart Ali's men while he was driving to the Spinghar hotel to meet us. He was told to get out of the vehicle and the men drove off. He still has not had his car returned.

On one day alone, 25 private vehicles, including cars owned by aid agencies, were commandeered. Many were seen parked at the airport, which has been taken over as a base by Hazarat Ali's men.

Checkpoints have returned to the area, with itchy-fingered gunmen manning posts. It is always nerve-wracking when you are stopped. You never really know who you are dealing with.

There are daily reports of looting and in some cases of vehicles being fired on.

There are few signs of change 10 days after the Taliban have gone. While in the capital Kabul there were scenes of men shaving off their beards and women shedding the burqa, the only change here is that music is being played.

There are still no women in the streets. The few who are wear the burqa. Doing an interview in a mountain village during the week, my interviewee, a woman, insisted the male interpreter turn his back.

"I wear the burqa not because the Taliban said so, but because it is part of our culture. I was wearing a burqa during the time of the Northern Alliance and before that", Shahar told me.

The Northern Alliance are attending talks in Bonn this weekend to discuss a post Taliban future. The Eastern Alliance are not involved.

Members of the local jirga are split on the Bonn talks. Some say they will not support Northern Alliance rule in Kabul and want a broad-based government that would include all ethnic groups.

But others, including Hazarat Ali, say they will co-operate with the Northern Alliance in helping forge a new government for the country.

But it must be remembered that division and warfare is bred into the people of Afghanistan.

On the outskirts of Jalalabad this week I spoke with one of Hazart Ali's men, Darwesh Endal from Eshkamesh. He told me an interesting story which said a lot about Afghanistan.

When he was seven a family in his village murdered his father after an argument.

As the eldest, it was his job to seek vengeance.

He waited several years. Two years ago he was tipped off that his father's killers were coming back to the village.

He waited two days, and ambushed and shot dead the man.

This is Afghanistan.