Salon.com > Chris Sands

Welcome to Kabul! Here’s some brass knuckles

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:02:00 +0000

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmad pulled a set of brass knuckles from his pocket to demonstrate how unsafe he feels in his Kabul neighborhood. Occasionally he can also be found carrying a knife or gun for self-defense.

"During the night when people go to wedding parties in the city and they want to come back here, no taxi driver is ready to bring them," he said.

Such is life for the people of Company, a sprawling area on the fringes of Kabul. As the West focuses fighting in the countryside, this part of the Afghan capital has slipped unnoticed into lawlessness.

The bloodshed and intimidation are often evident only in the rumors and whispers that are uttered behind closed doors. But then they burst into the open, and another man is beaten or killed in the street.

Fingers are pointed at warlords, insurgents, corrupt officials and common criminals, depending on who is asked. All the residents who spoke to GlobalPost in recent months were scared to give their full identities.

In Afghanistan, U.S. borrows strategy from Iraq

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:28:00 +0000

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Jabar Farhad used to be just another illiterate old mujahideen commander living off past glories in Afghanistan's countryside. Now he is at the forefront of a controversial project that has become a litmus test for NATO's exit strategy.

His band of 150 men is part of the nationwide Local Police program, funded by the United States, that arms and pays village forces to defend rural areas from the Taliban.

The scheme is inevitably compared to the US-sponsored Awakening Councils in Iraq, where tribal groups were successfully mobilized against Al Qaeda. Here, however, few people are convinced it will work.

Amid growing accusations of violence and criminality, the feeling among many Afghans is that these militias are destined to run wild and cause the kind of chaos their predecessors unleashed when the Soviets left in 1989.

Farhad was an insurgent back then, battling the Russians in the mountains and fields near Kabul. He ran a division of fighters in the civil war that followed and later opposed the Taliban regime.

Afghan school girls targeted

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 02:02:00 +0000

KABUL, Afghanistan — It was one of the few facets of Afghan life where the United States could claim success.

Now a series of assaults on schoolgirls in the north of the country are causing both teachers and politicians here to question whether the nation's education system can continue to improve following the withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.

"If the government does not pay enough attention, the future will be very dark," said Mawlawi Abdulwahab Erfan, a senator representing Takhar province, where the incidents occurred.

Hundreds of students have fallen ill in recent weeks after their drinking water was apparently spiked and poison was sprayed into their classrooms.

The attacks have intensified the debate about the Taliban’s reemergence and possible return to power. When the fundamentalist movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, girl’s education was severely restricted and only around one million children in total were enrolled in schools at all.

What Obama didn’t mention in Kabul

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:12:00 +0000

MAHMUD RAQI, Afghanistan — The office of Kapisa's governor sits high on a hilltop overlooking the provincial capital, Mahmud Raqi. It has a beautiful view of the river below and the mountains, trees and fields that stretch into the distance.

Beneath the tranquil surface, however, lies a grim truth. Just outside town roadside bombs are planted to target NATO convoys.

This is one of Afghanistan's forgotten battlegrounds, a place quietly unraveling as Washington debates the future of the war. Behind the calm facade is a strategically vital part of the country with a fragile security situation that shows every sign of worsening.

Kapisa is barely an hour's drive north of Kabul, yet two of its seven districts have been in insurgent hands for years, according to local residents, politicians and officials. One is Tagab, where the Taliban stop and search vehicles, run a shadow judicial system and stage regular attacks on foreign and Afghan troops.