Nearly three years after being ousted from power, the Taleban are without widespread popular support in Afghanistan.
But they still have enough firepower to try to sabotage tomorrow's trail-blazing presidential election.
What makes the Taleban menace particularly worrisome is the fact that radical Islamic fighters are mainly active in the south, the homeland of the country's majority Pashtun tribe, to which popular interim President Hamid Karzai belongs.
It is here the guerillas have kept up a steady drumbeat of violence, warning voters against turning out, killing election workers, attacking local tribal leaders who support the polls and raising fears of a bloodbath on election day.
'We have intelligence reports that insurgents are trying to infiltrate the city in big numbers,' said Kandahar Governor Mohammed Yusuf Pashtun.
'They are convinced this is their last chance. If the nation unites over the elections, then it is the end of the Taleban.'