Cutting Deals on the Run: A fire fight and a Taliban surrender near Konduz turn to chaos, casting light on a very murky war. A personal account from the battlefield.

Byline: Scott Johnson

In the no man's land 25 miles east of Konduz lies the village of Amir Abad. Little is left of the northern Afghan village but a maze of baked-dirt tracks and yellowing walls that look as if they'd crumble in a good breeze. A deserted United Nations shack stands at one end of the village, and white food stamps from the International Organization for Migration float and flutter on the chill morning air. Huddled groups of displaced people too poor or weary to move farther down the road are tending makeshift homes in abandoned buildings. A few children peer at us from behind the smoke of campfires; others peek around the corners of shattered buildings. They watch as Northern Alliance soldiers roam up and down the road, toting their Kalashnikovs by the barrel like walking sticks.

Northern Alliance commander Nazir Mohammed, 35, has come here to finalize a deal. For days he's been working on the defection of 200 or so troops still loyal to the Taliban, Afghanistan's erstwhile government. Now local Taliban commander Makhdom Omaranuddin, a white-bearded giant of a man, is waiting with his men behind a cluster of abandoned houses on the western edge of the village. Between the two forces, large stones painted red litter the plain, marking the location of old mines. Another potential danger lies around the defecting Taliban fighters. Arab, Pakistani and other foreign militants are stationed there, threatening to open fire on anyone who surrenders.

Shortly after the Northern…