THE hat that liberated Afghanistan is coming to New York.

You've seen them on the front line and on the front page, our heroic Northern Alliance allies donning their supersized skullcaps for battle against the turban-favoring Taliban.

But now, thanks as much to all the media exposure as the Northern Alliance's military successes, the cap - called a pakoul - is already showing up on the heads of style-seeking New Yorkers.

"I'm completely sold out," said Zabi Faqiri, owner of an Afghani market in Flushing, Queens. "Everyone wants one of them right now. My cousin in Pakistan is going to send me 100 more this week."

For Northern Alliance soldiers, the hats are a symbol of defiance. Legendary rebel leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated on Sept. 9, turned the pakoul into an icon of rebellion, like Fidel's cigar, Lenin's goatee or Lennon's mop-top.

The pakoul even became a matter of life and death, as Taliban militants threatened to shoot anyone who wore one. But now, with the Taliban in retreat, the pakoul is a hat in which to be seen. Combine it with a shoulder-held grenade launcher, and you look like a warrior.

And, without the grenade launcher, you look like a hip New Yorker.

So it's no wonder that the trendiest designers are rushing out versions of the brave beanie, taking their inspiration straight from the battlefields of Kunduz and the front-page photos.

In fact, that's the point.

"In my professional opinion, let the fad begin!" said Ivy Supersonic, whose curious chapeaux have adorned the likes of Pamela Anderson, Dennis Rodman and Snoop Dogg. "Fashion is all about timing, and these hats are everywhere."

Supersonic's version of the pakoul - "The Supersonic Allies Hat," which will soon be on sale at www.ivysupersonic.com - is inspired by the cap's better-known uncle, the beret. But where the beret has come to signify an artistic effeteness (think a withered Picasso in his gray period), the pakoul exists at that lively intersection of sophistication and underground.

The pakoul made a brief appearance in New York during our nation's last flirtation with Afghan chic, when an earlier generation of freedom fighters was battling the hated Soviets. But, as with Hula Hoops and yo-yos, the fad came and went.

But there are indications that, this time, pakouls are no mere passing fancy.

"There was already a Middle Eastern influence working its way through the fashion world even before Sept. 11," said hat designer Eugenia Kim, owner of the eponymous boutique on East 4th Street. "But this hat is stylish. I've already gotten requests from magazines to make something similar."

Kim, whose own beret designs have a distinct Afghan influence, believes that the pakoul has become such a dominant object that it is already disassociated from its military significance.

"If I saw a guy walking down the street in one of those, I wouldn't think ‘Northern Alliance,' I'd think, ‘He's kinda cute,'" she said.

Well, unlike Kim, I actually did see a guy walking down the street yesterday in a pakoul. He didn't speak any English, but he spoke in the international language of style.

"New Yorkers are going to love this hat," Faqiri told me. "Massoud wore it, so it is a proud hat. Plus, it's really good in the cold."

email: gershny@yahoo.com