Afghanistan's religious police still punching in.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

KABUL, Afghanistan _ The employees of Afghanistan's hated religious police still gather every morning at the cold concrete building where Taliban officials once concerned themselves with such matters as the proper length of a pious man's beard.

There is not much work to be done now, with the northern alliance in charge in Kabul and the Taliban gone. After signing in and exchanging a few pleasantries, the staff of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice calls it a day and goes home.

"If you don't show up for work and don't sign the time sheets every day, the new government will think you're a Taliban," said Farhad, an employee in the ministry's personnel office. Like most of the staff, he has not been paid for five months and does not want to sacrifice his back pay by not showing up for work.

The employees who gather here now are career civil servants, not the hated officials who enforced the Taliban's puritanical codes with public floggings and ...