Intelligence

Bad times follow Taliban back to town

TheStar.com - Bad times follow Taliban back to town

A letter from kandahar | After a brief taste of prosperity, the provincial capital is once again a place of fear and suspicion, writes author Nelofer Pazira
Aug. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
NELOFER PAZIRA
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Only a few months ago, the city of Kandahar seemed to be on the road to prosperity.

Newly paved streets with proper signs (one named for Queen Soraya, wife of 1920s Afghan reformer King Amanullah Khan), a park with a children's playground, and several smart guesthouses were part of the provincial capital's new image.

Near the Kandahar market, the foundation of many new modern buildings and houses had been laid.

But now, fear permeates the city. Suspicious eyes watch every passerby and every car is scrutinized.

People shrink from me when I ask for an interview; they run away when they see a camera.

But a few brave souls are still willing to talk to a journalist, among them Mohammad Hikmat.

Hikmat and his younger brother bought land here — $45,000 for 400 square metres — to build a home.

Over the last five years, they'd made good money working with foreign reporters and aid agencies. But six months ago, it all came to an end. The Taliban was coming back — and fear of reprisals spread like a fire.

Then came a series of suicide attacks and printed decrees, often hung on the walls of mosques, ordering the people to stop supporting the government.

The construction company for which Hikmat worked as an engineer laid off most of its staff.

He decided to shelve his dream of owning a house and pack his family off to safety in Quetta, a six-hour drive across the Pakistan border.

His brother, who'd worked as a cameraman for foreign television reporters, destroyed all the press cards and letters of recommendation he'd collected. He erased all the images he'd recorded — footage of the city, interviews with American soldiers — for fear of punishment by the Taliban.

An Indian company that built the road between Kandahar and Spin Boldak withdrew when rumours spread about the Pakistani army helping Taliban forces reach Kandahar.

"The Americans abandoned Afghanistan," says Hikmat. "When they were around, people were making money. The Taliban had run away, but they were not all defeated and the Americans knew that, too. Yet the U.S. decreased the number of its troops."

People here say the Taliban was well positioned when NATO troops — mostly from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands — replaced American forces in the region last month.

Maiwand district — an hour's drive southwest of the capital and the site of a great British military defeat during the Second Afghan War in 1880 — is now the seat of resistance to the government and NATO forces.

"I can't go home because I know the Taliban will kill me," says a Maiwand resident who is hiding in Kandahar and working at a hospital here.

"From our entire village there are only two educated people. It's not hard for the Taliban to find us there. They have continued to issue decrees announcing that the killing of all those working with the current government or any of the foreign agencies — especially the military — is an Islamic duty."

Taliban forces control most of neighbouring Helmand province, where some 4,000 British troops are stationed.

In Helmand, a sinister note, which I recently saw pinned to the wall of a mosque, proclaimed that the Taliban would award $1,000 to anyone who brings in the head of a government worker or foreigner.

"Now, the Taliban is everywhere," says Alia, a nurse in Kandahar's Polyclinic Hospital.

She and her family returned from Pakistan four years ago and now live in the Khoshal Mena neighbourhood, a short distance from the city centre.

"There was a doctor called Aziz in this building who received a threat" she says. "The Taliban hung a leaflet on his door, telling him that if he didn't stop working for the government and didn't take his children out of school, he would be killed."

The doctor and his family fled immediately.

Now, Alia has taken down the sign on her door that carried her name and occupation.

"My children are also in school and I'm worried that I may face a similar threat," she says.

Kandaharis have strong opinions on whom to blame for the Taliban's resurgence.

Wakil Sahib, a member of the Religious Council of Kandahar, says Pakistan doesn't want its neighbour to be economically independent.

"They want to keep Afghanistan as their market. They want us to continue to go to their doctors, buy their medicine, use their products. To serve their own interests, the Pakistani intelligence service funds the Taliban."

Saifullah, a man too frightened to identify his job, agrees.

"Pakistan, with the help of the U.S., originally created the Taliban," he says. "And to this day they are providing them with weapons and money."

Rafi, an unemployed engineer, points a finger at both the United States and the Kabul government.

"After the U.S., the responsibility lies with our own government, which has also failed to deliver," he says. "But I wonder if the war in Afghanistan is less about the Taliban and Pakistan, and more about the rivalry between America and Europe. Afghanistan has become a victim once again, just like it was during the Cold War.

"It would be easier to live under the full control of one or another government, be it the Taliban or a U.S.-supported Afghan government. But this is like living in purgatory."

Nelofer Pazira, 33, was raised in Kabul. She fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with her family in 1989 and settled in Canada a year later. She is the star of the movies Kandahar and Return to Kandahar, and the author of A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan.

August 27, 2006 at 12:37 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home