The fear in Washington, Islamabad and other capitals is that the U.S.-led military campaign might topple the Taliban before the opposition can agree on the makeup of a new government. That, in turn, could plunge the country into even deeper anarchy.

"The political process needs to be placed on a fast track in order to forestall the possibility of a political vacuum," Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf warned Tuesday after a meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"It should not lag behind the fast-moving events in the military field, nor should any attempt be made by any warring faction to impose itself on Afghanistan in the wake of the military strikes against the Taliban."

Among the proposals for organizing a new government is one calling for the 87-year-old former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, to convene a grand council of all political groups to map out the future administration of the country.

That formula has been endorsed by the United States, Pakistan, Britain and other Western powers.

Afghans who favor that option will gather Saturday in the border city of Peshawar to try to agree on a list of participants for the grand council, or loya jirga.

They would include leaders of the majority Pashtun tribes, representatives of the opposition northern alliance, allies of the exiled monarch and any of the Taliban willing to accept that the militant Islamic movement can no longer rule alone.

The northern alliance had agreed to participate with the king in such a council. However, on Tuesday, the alliance said such it should no be convened for two or three years after their leader, deposed president Burhanuddin Rabbani, takes power in an interim government.

Rabbani's forces are within 12 miles of Kabul but have been unable to move forward for years.

"The king is the only answer," said Ishaq Gailani, head of the Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan, based in Peshawar.

Gailani, who has close links to Zaher Shah, wants a future government in Afghanistan that includes neither Taliban nor northern alliance.

"Any government that includes either warring groups will fail," he said. "People don't trust them. They have killed so many people."

The prospect of a return to power by Rabbani has alarmed not only Pakistan but also the United Nations. During his four years in power in pre-Taliban days, Rabbani was unable to control warring factions now allied with him in the opposition.

Fighting among the factions destroyed much of Kabul, killed an estimated 50,000 people and set the stage for the Taliban to seize power in 1996.

Peter Kessler of the U.N. refugee agency warned of a "blood bath if the northern alliance takes Kabul."

"Our donors have to know what the price tag could be for those governments funding the northern alliance," he said, referring primarily to Rabbani's backers in Moscow.

Pakistan, which maintained close ties to the Taliban until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, has urged Washington not to allow the northern alliance to take control, arguing that the largely ethnic minority movement would never be accepted by the Pashtun majority, which now are represented by the Taliban.

On Tuesday, Powell, using language favored by Pakistan, said any future government must be "one that represents all the people of Afghanistan and would be a regime that would obviously be friendly to all of its neighbors, including Pakistan."

His words were interpreted to mean the government must be broader than just the northern alliance.

Pakistani and Western officials say the United States and its partners must come up with some sort of formula before next month because the beginning of winter and the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan will make it difficult to sustain the bombing campaign.

However, if the air campaign is not curtailed, the Taliban may be weaken to the point that the front line north of Kabul will collapse with the alliance overrunning the city _ with or without international support.

"I hope they don't take Kabul," said Hedayat Amin Arsala, the king's representative who is holding talks in Pakistan. "I certainly hope it can be done relatively quickly," referring to the grand council.

"The longer it takes the more difficult the solution will be," he told The Associated Press.

Mohajeddin Mehdi, first secretary of the Afghan Embassy in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, said opposition forces have advanced to within 6 miles of Mazar-e-Sharif and that the fighters held the Dedai military airport near the city for several hours overnight Tuesday before being driven out by a Chechen militia backing the Taliban.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Abdul Vadud, the northern alliance's military attache in Dushanbe, as saying Tuesday night that the alliance's vanguard units had entered the Taliban northern stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif. It also cited diplomatic sources in Dushanbe as saying that the forces of Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum were approaching Mazar-e-Sharif from two directions after a fast and long march over the past two days.

Dostum on Tuesday denied reports from some alliance commanders that the city was taken, Russia's NTV network said.

The opposition fighters are taking control of more territory in the western Farah and Jowzram provinces and now hold altogether 35 percent of the country's territory, Mehdi said. Taking Mazar-e-Sharif would allow the opposition to consolidate its grip on the small area it holds in the north.