So far this year, the United States has contributed $180 million for Afghan famine relief and has offered to contribute a major part of the $584 million the UN is raising to save 7.5 million refugees from starvation this Winter. Meanwhile, local warlords in rural areas of eastern Afghanistan are wavering in their support of the Taliban. While the Taliban concentrates its troops in urban areas, the bin Laden troops from the terrorist camps appear to be absent and not available to remind the rural warlords who is running the country.