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SCENEISSUE 69-70 - APRIL-MAY 2010
perspective • insight • people • reviews • pics • life
Showcasing Kabul’s top snappersScene photo special
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AFGHAN
Mullah Zaeef talks jihad, 1980s styleBamiyan’s first ski guides wait for the tourists
Arian Delwari records her debut album
www.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene April-May 2010
Afghan Scene April-May 2010
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Afghan Scene April-May 2010
Publisher: Afghan Scene Ltd, Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul, AfghanistanManager & Editor: Afghan Scene Ltd, Kabul, AfghanistanDesign: Kaboora ProductionAdvertising: [email protected]: Emirates Printing Press, DubaiContact: [email protected] / www.afghanscene.comAfghan Scene welcomes the contribution of articles and / or pictures from its readers. Editorial rights reserved.
SCENEISSUE 69-70 - APRIL-MAY 2010
AFGHAN
Afghan Scene April-May 2010IntroductionContents
5
7 Introduction
10 Kabul at WorkPhotographer, film-maker and disease-plagued man of action David Gill meets the Bonesetter of Kabul
14 What comes around, goes aroundFormer top Taliban lieutenant Mullah Zaeef recalls his time fighting jihad in Kandahar in an extract from his acclaimed autobiography
21 That was the election that wasTop Aussie snapper Adam Ferguson showcases his harrowing pictures of the run up to last year’s presidential and provincial elections
47 Farewell to a military contractorEric “Moose” Petrevich says goodbye to a country where he had only intended intended to stay a couple of months
52 That sweet Kabul soundCalifornia-based musician Ariana Delawari’s unique sound is being turned into a debut album with the help of David Lynch
60 A view from HelmandPhotographer Mikhail Gulastov shows off some of his work from an embed with the US Marines
72 Howzat!Documentary maker Leslie Knott follows the Afghan cricket’s team continued success as they play in the World Twenty 20 tournament
76 Back country BamiyanJon Boone reports on the ski experts who say that in five years time Bamiyan could be a “world class” ski destination
86 Afghan Essentials All you need to know about where to go in Kabul
97 Farewell to a Kabul legendDisk jockey, restaurant proprietor, lawyer, lover and all round legend, Timur Nusratty bids Afghanistan adieu
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Once again Afghanistan finds itself on the brink of a massive NATO operation. America’s top general has billed the attempt to stamp
out Taliban influence from Kandahar as the “cornerstone” of the western military effort. The hope is that insurgents will be forced out, decent government installed and in a year or so the pressure on the Taliban leadership will be so great that many of them will be interested giving up the fight they have been waging for nearly a decade.
But Kandaharis are terrified of what the coming months will bring. Many of them are all too aware that Operation Moshtarak, the last big ISAF effort to clear central Helmand, particularly the area of Marjah,has been a flop.
And you don’t have to live in Kandahar, or even be an Afghan, to be wary about the next couple of months. Scene’s longest standing readers will remember operations Medusa, Mountain Thrust, Panther’s Claw and all the other much ballyhooed ISAF efforts. When the shooting stops they have tended to leave behind a civilian population that continues to be preyed upon by insurgents and predatory government officials alike.
Given much more time and a government serious about addressing its own limitations then perhaps a successful outcome is possible. But the US political timetable, with mid-term elections in November, is too constrained. And a revolution in government behaviour, with a correspondingly huge improvement to the Afghan army and police (which also needs to be massively enlarged), is just not credible.
It is hard not to conclude that with the situation so dire, and western will so lacking, it is time to talk to the Taliban.
But that means more than simply offering fighters the right to return to live in a state from which they feel excluded and that they have opposed since its establishment at the Bonn Conference. The “reconciliation” discussed by Afghan and US officials is too often little more than a plan for insurgents to surrender. If the conflict is to be wound down, real compromises will have to be made on the constitution, women’s rights and civil liberties.
It will not be the happy outcome that many people hoped for nine years ago, but nor will endless grand military operations.
7
Introduction
Time to talk
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an honestly state - the global recession has had no impact on me whatsoever
Very nice dear. Would you like a cup of tea?
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8
Scene Team
ContributorsAfghan Scene Magazine is proud to showcase work from the best photographers in Afghanistan
David Gill is a British writer, photographer and videogrpher focusing on a social documentary and overseas development. His current book project
Kabul, a City at Work is a selection over 100 original portraits.web.mac.com/shot2bits/work
Almost all of the photographs and cartoons featured in Afghan Scene are available for sale direct from the artists. Most of them are available for commissions, here and elsewhere. If you would like to contribute to
Afghan Scene, or if you can’t get hold of a contributor, please contact [email protected].
Harry Cole is a cad and a bounder. A former guards officer in the British army he’s now a raconteur, wit and man about town who juggles security and
logistics in between scribbling Scene’s pocket cartoons.
Aussie Adam Ferguson hails from New South Wales, Australia and studied photographer at Griffith University. After working in Cambodia and Paris he moved
to New Delhi to work as an independent snapper covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. His work has been appeared in Time Magazine, The New York Times,
Vanity Fair, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Stern, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times Magazine and The Sydney Morning Herald. adamfergusonphoto.com
After graduating with a photography degree at Moscow University, Mikhail worked as a staff photographer for the Kommersant, Russia’s largest daily newspaper. In
2005 he moved into freelancing and his work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Fortune, GQ, Stern and many others. Last year he was a finalist
at the prestigious Bayeux Prix for War Correspondents. In 2009 he moved to Kabul where he is now based. mikhailgalustov.com
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X-RAY VISION: Haji Wakil inspects a totally unnecessary bit of modern technology | David Gill
million people. He’s been practising 77 years, “without any complaints so far”.
He operates out of a tiny one room surgery, a mud house by the Kabul River. He works by touch and only occasionally looks at X-rays that patients sometimes bring along.
Treatment ranges from gentle massage with his “special” ointment to resetting dislocated bones with splints and laying patients on the floor, walking on top of them and using his
Kabul has many ancient traditions that are uncommon in the west.
One such occupation is the role of the bone-setter within poorer communities. Traditionally those who can’t afford expensive hospital treatment. However 95-year old Abdullah Wakil Arakash, Afghanistan’s oldest practising bone setter is still going strong.
He comes from a family tradition of bone-setters and claims to have fixed around three
city, Kabul now boasts some fine hospitals. But Abdul still has a loyal customer base. Why? Well, despite the tough exterior and years of hard living many Afghans are still afraid of needles and modern medicine.
“I go to the bone-setter because I hate hospitals,” says one Kabuli. “They remind me of death. Needles are horrible tools. The bone setter uses traditional methods that don’t involve more pain.”
heels as some form of corrective tool. He also uses eggs.
There are 206 bones in the adult human body and he seems familiar with all of them. Treatment charges are voluntary with some people paying as little a 20Afs per consultation. He also claims that he attracts medical tourists from as far afield as Germany. He charges them 100Afs per session
Thanks to the ongoing reconstruction of the
Kabul, A City at Work is a selection of over 100 original portraits from the capital. Its authors describe it as a window into Kabul’s soul. For more information visit www.web.mac.com/shot2bits/work | www. kabulatwork.com
may breakyour bones
Sticks and stone
AFGHAN SCENE meets the Abdullah Haji Wakil The Bone Setter of Kabul
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Kabul at workKabul at workAfghan Scene April-May 2010Afghan Scene April-May 2010
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AfghanITT Limited is a SMB Cisco Select Certified Partner in Afghanistan so you can be sure of getting genuine Cisco equipment with standard warranty and a host of other benefits.
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The battle for Kandahar- the prequel
As the government gears up for a summer of operations around Kandahar MULLAH ABDUL SALAM ZAEEF recounts the moments he evaded certain death at the hands of Russian troops in the Arghandab and rallied
the mujahideen to smash through Soviet lines
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the mountains and from Sufi Saheb desert area.
We could not find a way out and there were certainly not enough of us to break through the Russian lines. Even though they had moved a significant part of their ground forces from Bana to Wokanu we still struggled just to hold our ground. We were not far from the nearby mujahedeen fronts of Panjwayi, Nakhunay and Zalakhan, who would all be able to send us aid quickly, but still we had no way of getting word to them, and we were running short of ammunition. Time was running out; nine mujahedeen had been martyred and ten others from different groups were injured.
The situation grew increasingly desperate and we realised that we could not hold out much longer without new supplies and reinforcements. We needed help urgently. Mullah Mohammad Sadiq and I decided that it would be best if I tried to slip through the lines. I knew many mujahedeen in Panjwayi and had the best chance of getting the support we needed. I could gather troops and return to attack the Russian cordon from the rear, opening a passage to withdraw the injured mujahedeen.
But how could I get out? The only option was to pass directly through the Russian lines. We decided that I should go with one of the villagers and pretend to be a farmer. In a nearby
At the height of the war, there were over 100,000 Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan. Millions of civilians fled to
neighbouring countries and around a million mujahedeen sacrificed their lives. The last few years of the war were marked by increased brutality by Soviet and Afghan soldiers, aerial bombardments and massive battles involving thousands of mujahedeen.
The war was a matter of life and death; often chance was all that separated the two. I was caught nine times in Russian ambushes while fighting and trekking back and forth to Pakistan. Eight times God saved me from certain death, just once succumbing to injury. In Khushab, a bomb blew me through the air away from a spot that was riddled with bullets a split-second later. Two of my friends died in a mortar explosion in Nelgham that I also barely avoided; the Russians had booby-trapped a stash of mortars they left behind in a fort. Although I stood only a few metres away when they exploded I was left without a scratch on my body.
When I first joined the jihad I was fifteen years old. I did not know how to fire a Kalashnikov or how to lead men. I knew nothing of war. But the Russian frontlines were a tough proving ground and – at different times – I eventually commanded several mujahedeen groups in Abasabad, Mahalajat, Arghandab, Khushab and Sanzary.
Many times we were surrounded by Russian forces. It happened once in Mahalajat. The Russians had trapped us, cutting off the only retreat path with several overlapping security belts, while holding the high ground all around us. They inched closer as they shelled us from
in their backs.” Bismillah was responsible for most of those.
We arrived safe at Panjaw Wali, but I remember feeling tense the whole way. Not a single shot was fired at us. At Jendarma we saw more soldiers and took the long way
round. I reached Panjwayi the same day, arriving finally in the village of Mirwais Nika. It took me three days to gather together over two hundred mujahedeen. On the third night we moved to Zalakhan and went onwards to Anguriyan and Taymuriyan. Approaching the enemy from the rear we fought our way towards Mullah Mohammad Sadiq, attacking several government positions and breaking the security cordon. The Afghan government forces and their Russian allies were now separated into two groups. Some of the enemy soldiers threw away their weapons in surprise and started to flee. We managed to secure a path out of the confusion, and evacuated the wounded mujahedeen and the bodies of the martyrs. Our attack had caused confusion among the enemy and they pulled back, thus ending the siege on Karesh.
village my friends searched all my pockets and took out anything that could identify me as a mujahed fighter. A villager agreed to take me on his motorcycle and we set off towards the Russian lines. When we arrived at Sarpoza from Chilzina, an Afghan army soldier stepped out onto the road and pointed his Kalashnikov at us.
The soldier shouted from a distance. “Welcome, Ashrar! I saw you in the village when your friends were preparing you like a groom.” I explained that we were civilians; “our houses are over there,” I said, pointing to some houses further up the road. “We are going to Mirwais Mina, we don’t know what you mean.” The soldier seemed confused and told us to get off the bike.
Without any warning, he stabbed me in the arm with his pen and started to search me. The pen broke off and one half was left stuck in my arm. Blood gushed out of the wound and my sleeve slowly darkened to a shade of crimson. He searched me all over but couldn’t find anything. The driver swore that I lived in his village and had been living there for a long time. My arm throbbed and I could see the tip of the broken pen sticking out. I repeated my story to the soldier: how I lived in Ghani village, how my home was there, and how I had nothing to do with the mujahedeen. I was just a farmer.
When the soldier finally allowed us to get back on the motorcycle, the villager hastily sped off. The villager shouted over his shoulder that the soldier’s name was Bismillah and that he was known for his cruelty. “In the past months,” he explained over the noise of the engine, “Thirty-five people have been shot
The government forces and their Russian allies were separated into two groups – some of them threw away their weapons started to flee
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days the Russians had surrounded our positions from Nelgham road, Nelgham hill and Kolk. Once again all the routes were cut off; we had no access to supplies and we couldn’t move our injured or martyred.
We were running out of food, and soon only bread and dates were left. Mawlawi Saheb Dangar was the logistics officer of the mujahedeen and tried to stretch our thin reserves out to last as long as possible. By the end we were only receiving three dates per meal. The Russians gained ground each day. We started to prepare for a close-range fight and dug trenches outside the houses we slept in.
We reorganized into a new group led by the late Mullah Mazullah Akhund. Our commanders were Khan Abdul Hakim and Karam Khan, whom we called the ‘twin brothers’. We had Karam Khan as our commander, and Khan Abdul Hakim commanded the front of the late Hafizullah Akhundzada. They were skilful men and brilliant tacticians who fought with great courage. Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund, who later became the leader of the Taliban movement, was the commander of our fronts in the north. Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund, Mullah Mazullah, Mullah Feda Mohammad and Mullah Obaidullah Akhund were the main leaders of that battle in Sangisar.
The Russians pushed forward, and soon we could see them from our trenches. By the late afternoon they were only a hundred metres away. The clash was brief but the fierce fighting left the battlefield littered with bodies. We seized two PKs and many light weapons. Jan Mohammad took one of the PKs and Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund took the other.
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Not long before the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, they carried out a wide range of operations in Panjwayi, Maiwand, Dand and Arghandab. These operations were their last attempts to regain control of the province but instead turned out to be their ultimate defeat. Russian soldiers tried to enter Sangisar in Panjwayi for one last time but were faced by all the mujahedeen of the region, who came together to help with the defence.
The well-known frontline of Hafizullah Akhundzada was in Sangisar and he
commanded many strong and experienced mujahedeen. A second frontline was newly founded and belonged to the late Major Abdul Hai. Various other small mujahedeen groups joined us.
We faced rockets, artillery fire and bombardment for three days. Planes crisscrossed the skies and their ordnance shook the earth, striking fear into our hearts. Tanks rolled into Panjwayi, and ground forces followed soon after. Despite their overwhelming power, however, the Russians and their Afghan allies faced strong resistance. After four or five
Even though he was injured, Mullah Najibullah amused us a lot. He still could not hear a word but we kept on trying to talk to him. A bomb had also injured Khan Abdul Hakim, the commander of the other front.
May God be praised! What a brotherhood we had among the mujahedeen! We weren’t concerned with the world or with our lives; our intentions were pure and every one of us was ready to die as a martyr. When I look back on the love and respect that we had for each other, it sometimes seems like a dream.
The next day we left and made our way to Zangiabad through Sia Choy. We rested
for a couple of days while the Russian and government forces moved to Pashmol. The mujahedeen in Pashmol soon sent word that they needed our help, and we left immediately. Mullah Mohammad Omar picked up his PK, ready to head out to Pashmol with us, but we urged him not to go. He argued with the late Mullah Mazullah but in the end he didn’t come. He went back to Nelgham and then on to Pakistan for treatment.
The clashes lasted for more then 22 days in Sangisar, Nelgham and Nahr-i Kareez. In Pashmol they had us pinned down for 21 days before heavy casualties forced them to withdraw.
The battle turned into a hand-to-hand fight, with grenades flying over our heads. Some mujahedeen managed to catch them in midair and throw them back, though in one case a mujahed was martyred when a grenade exploded in his hand before he could throw it back. The Russians pulled back and started shelling our position with DC guns. The ground shook with the explosions and the air was heavy with the smell of gunpowder. Smoke and dust rose up all around. Their air forces bombed our positions; every house and trench was hit. Four mujahedeen were martyred and another four injured.
Mullah Najibullah was hit by a bomb, and the blast knocked him out. His hand was injured and when he came to he could no longer hear. Shrapnel, pieces of stone and wood flew through the air. Mullah Mohammad Omar was only twenty metres away from me taking cover behind a wall. He looked around the corner and a shard of metal shrapnel hit him in the face and took out his eye.
Soon every room was filled with injured mujahedeen, but none of them lost their composure. The bodies of the martyred mujahedeen lay on the ground, a jarring reminder of the battle outside. Mullah Mohammad Omar busied himself bandaging his eye. On that same night we held a marvellous party. The late Mullah Marjan sang and we accompanied his sweet voice with percussion on whatever we had to hand. I can still remember the ghazal that Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund sang:
My illness is untreatable, oh, my flower-like friendMy life is difficult without you, my flower-like friend
Some mujahedeen managed to catch the hand grenades in midair and throw them back
Mullah Omar looked around the corner and a shard of metal shrapnel hit him in the face and took out his eye
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working well and started to settle disputes among the communities.
Mullah Nek Mohammad Akhund was a well-known figure from this time. A close friend of Mullah Mohammad Omar, he was most closely associated with a stretch of road near Pashmol where he fought his jihad against the Russian convoys on his own. He would hide in the stream next to the road – breathing with the aid of the air in an inner tube of a bicycle tire – rising to ambush passing columns of tanks with his RPG.
The Russians came to hate that part of the road, and tasked their airplanes to kill him. He was eventually martyred in a bombing raid, but before dying he was said to proclaim that the Russians would never dare to drive up the road even after he had died. He was buried beside the road as he wished, and three days later the Russians withdrew to their base in Zheray desert. They never did drive up that road again.
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Many great battles were fought against the Russians and the government forces by the mujahedeen but none was as intense for me as the final assault on Kandahar Airport near Khushab in 1988. The Russians had already retreated to their main base camp and were preparing to withdraw when we decided to make a final push. It was summer and the grapes were not yet ripe when we gathered our forces together. It was the biggest operation I personally took part in, with some five or six hundred mujahedeen led by Mullah Mohammad Akhund and myself. I commanded a group of 58 approaching the base from the northeast, while
These final battles with the Russians cost us dearly.
At the end, I remember one house where there were ten mujahedeen laid out in a line. Hajji Latif Akhund, known to visiting western journalists as ‘the lion of Kandahar’, came the same day to pay his respects in person. The mujahedeen lay there like lambs, and tears rolled down his face. Hajji Latif, who was the
commander of the joint frontlines at this time, told Mullah Burjan, “Mullah Saheb! Fear God! You should not sacrifice our young Taliban to the Russians.”
“Hajji Saheb!” Mullah Burjan responded. “There is no other option. If we don’t fight the jihad, then the Russians will conquer our homeland. To fight the jihad means that martyrdom and losses are inevitable.”
This didn’t satisfy Hajji Latif. “Mullah Saheb! I don’t mean that we should not fight the jihad, but I am concerned about the Taliban and the Ulemaa’, for they are the spiritual heart of our country and they need to be protected. Most of the fighters I have on my fronts smoke hashish, shave their beards and know little about Islam.
Blood was spilled over every inch of contested ground, and the enemy forces moved to Mahalajat, Suf Zalakhan and Mashur. The mujahedeen who did not take part in the fight in Pashmol went on to help out in Mahalajat. With the support of the new forces, they were able hold the line against the Russians.
The siege of Arghandab was the last big operation the Russians carried out in southern Afghanistan. Over 4,000 tanks came over the mountains into the green and fertile valley, and the battle lasted for more than 40 days. Mujahedeen from all over the south came together to defend the district against the Russians. Hundreds were martyred; in our front alone we lost over 70 fighters. The Taliban fought alongside the Alikozai tribe led by Mullah Naqib. The Russians finally retreated and pulled back to their main base at the airport.
Aside from the camp at the airport, they maintained some checkpoints along major roads and highways. Their helicopters routinely patrolled and conducted searches, and single cars on the road at night would be stopped or sometimes shot at. Russians units set up ambushes along the major smuggling routes, often flying troops directly onto the remote mountain passes used by the mujahedeen to go back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We attacked one checkpoint after another, gradually forcing the Russians out, and soon parts of the region came under the control of the Taliban. The Russians continued to attack the area from afar using their heavy artillery and air force, while we busied ourselves with extending our judicial system. The courts were
Mullah Mohammad Akhund attacked the camp from the north with the rest of the fighters.
The Russians fought back aggressively – no holds barred – in a way we hadn’t seen before. There was no way for them to retreat and it was their last base in the south. We fought for three days and three nights. I did not sleep or eat. It was the month of Ramazan and I was fasting, but the attacks did not cease and went on all throughout the night. The Ulemaa’ advised me to break my fast, but I was afraid that I would die any minute in the storm of bombs and rockets being launched at us, and I did not want to be martyred while not fasting. In only three days, I lost 50 of the 58 men under my command.
We came under attack from Dostum’s men and his government forces. In all my life and out of all the fights I saw and took part in, the battle for Khushab was the fiercest, most dangerous and hardest of all. We faced a huge number of troops, and were so close to the airport that our enemies threw their entire might at us. Every centimetre of ground was flooded with soldiers and war. Mujahedeen fronts from the entire region joined the fight. Military operations took place every day; villages and houses were bombed; people were killed and the land was turned to ruins. But the government and Russian forces were stretched and engaged on every front by the mujahedeen.
There were a large number of mujahedeen fighting in Mahalajat, including many famous commanders and strong fighters. Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, the late Mullah Ahmadullah Akhund, Mullah Abdul Ghani Akhund, Ghani Jan Agha and many mujahedeen from other groups were fighting alongside each other.
The Ulemaa’ advised me to break my fast, but I was afraid that I would die any minute and I did not want to be martyred while not fasting
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A founding member of the Taliban movement that emerged in 1994, he is best known for the last position he held within the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as ambassador to Pakistan. Since we were introduced around four years ago, we have come a long way together, from early discussions about his Guantanamo memoir to a fuller autobiography, My Life With The Taliban, which I edited together with my colleague Felix Kuehn and which has just been published in the UK, USA and Australia. A German translation will be released at the end of the year.
Mullah Zaeef’s life is humbling: not just the first inside-view into the still-opaque Taliban movement, but beyond it offers a window into the history of most Afghans in southern Afghanistan, from the war against the Soviet Union to the civil war in the early 1990s and the Taliban’s rule as government until their final downfall after the September 11th attacks.
Back in 2006, I came across an article in a local-language newspaper about a
book published by someone who had recently been released from Guantanamo. “Sounds interesting,” I remember remarking to my colleague, Felix. “Maybe we should try to get hold of a copy. I’d imagine people would be interested in reading about that back in Europe.”
Mullah Zaeef, I learnt, was from Kandahar and mutual friends introduced us. Tribal elders who had been my friends for many years, people who had fled during the Taliban’s rule and had since returned, but who nevertheless maintained cordial relationships with every side of the conflict, introduced us.
An introduction from them was all it took to set up a meeting. Mullah Zaeef is a quiet, unassuming man in his early forties, and you’d never know from a brief chat with him that he has had such an eventful life.
Why we did it:
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his concern about the young men Hajji Latif had gathered around him. They were all hashish smokers and ‘cinema boys’, he said. Hajji Latif was bitterly ashamed and promised that he would order his men to shave their heads and take a haircut. He would, he said, teach them the suras of Yasin, Tabarak al-Azi and Amm. “I will make them become like the Taliban,” he pledged whole-heartedly.
As soon as he left the meeting he started teaching his men, but we later heard that a woman had visited him. “What are you doing, Hajji Baba?” she asked. Hajji Latif told her that he wanted to turn his men into Taliban. “But Hajji Saheb!” she said. “They will not become Taliban this way. Leave them be. They are young and have desires. They only have a two-day life. Let them pass it in happiness.” This woman apparently made Hajji Latif change his decision. God knows better!
They would fight against the mujahedeen if only I let them. Making them stay stops them from joining the government forces. If they die along the way, well then they will be martyred and enter heaven. The Taliban have a greater role in society.”
The Taliban encountered Hajji Latif and his men later, at a meeting of commanders in Nelgham. Hajji Latif had arrived at the meeting escorted by rough-looking hashish-smoking boys. They were young, wore western-style clothes and carried small Kalakov machine guns slung over their shoulders. The difference between them and the Taliban was clear and plain to all. They stood outside our door with their hair all slicked-back, and soon the Taliban were gathered around them, staring in their direction instead of showing them hospitality.
Hajji Mullah Ali Mohammad Akhund voiced
This is the autobiography of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, a senior former member of the Taliban. His memoirs, translated from Pashto, are more than just a personal account of his extraordinary life. My Life with the Taliban offers a personal and privileged insight into the rural Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban’s bedrock.
The book is on sale in Afghanistan at Shah M. Books on Chaharrahi Sedarat (Sedarat X-roads) in the original edition. It is also available on amazon.com
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Kandahar’s Only Foreign Residents(TM) FELIX KUEHN and ALEX STRICK VAN LINSCHOTEN are responsible for translating My Life into English
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Countdownto an electionADAM FERGUSON captured the hope and horror of last year’spresidential and provincial elections
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AUGUST 14: Afghan children fly kites in a graveyard during the run up to polling day
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AUGUST 14: Children play in front of a Karzai campaign billboard featuring the president’s two running mate
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AUGUST 14: A beggar lays on the street after a political rally by the ethnic Hazara presidential candidate, Ramazan Bashardost
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AUGUST 15: A women injured by a car bomb that exploded in front of ISAF HQ lies in bed in a Kabul hospital
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AUGUST 16: A market scene during the lead up to Afghan presidential elections
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AUGUST 17: Supporters of former foreign ministerAbdullah Abdullah gather for a rally in the National Stadium
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AUGUST 18: Two days to polling day and people gather at the door of a house in a camp for internally displaced people in Kabul
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AUGUST 19: Afghan soldiers remove the bodies of three alleged Taliban from a shootout in a bank in Kabul
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AUGUST 19: Afghan security force members remove the bodies of three alleged Taliban from a bank after a shoot out in Kabul
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AUGUST 20: Afghan women cast their ballots in a class room used as a polling station
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AUGUST 22: An empty restaurant booth on theshore of Karga lake two days after national elections
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SEPTEMBER 17: A stretcher and blood stain remain on the ground after an ISAF convoy consisting of Italian military vehicles was targeted in a car bomb attack
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Hard to let goFIRST LIEUTENANT ERIC “MOOSE” PETREVICH first came to Kabul on a short-term
assignment that became very long-term
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am call to prayers from the five different mosques that I can hear from my window. Don’t get me wrong, I do find the calls to prayers soothing and inspiring, but I haven’t sleep past 0400 since I got to Kabul.
Favourite place in Afghanistan?
This one will be hard answer. There are so many great places here in just the local Kabul area. Some are hidden away (like who would have thought about building a high dive on top of a mountain?) Or the local cafes and restaurants that invite you to stay and hang out all day. Then you have places like Istailf, that words can’t describe, and pictures can’t do it justice.
To choose one, I guess I’ll have to say that the Quagar Lake was my favorite place so far. I was able to knock around a few golf balls at the Kabul Golf Course, then ride in a paddle boat, ride a horse (faster then I ever wanted to!), hit an amusement ride or two, and follow it up at one of the neatest atmospheres of any restaurant in the city.
What’s next?
I have no idea what the future holds for me right now. My job prospects are limited; maybe I’ll look for another Army deployment here in Afghanistan, or maybe even finally getting married. Who knows?
When and why did you first come to Afghanistan?
I had just gotten back from a one year deployment with the Army in Iraq. I was happy to finally be home from the heat and sand. Then my civilian employer stated that they were in need of someone to go to Afghanistan to set up our new office and I was a perfect fit for the job. Originally I was only supposed to be here about two months, but we all know how that goes. Two months turned in four months, then six months and then you are looking at your visa expiration date six months later wondering if you are going to make it out of here in time.
Best of times?
This is a hard one. I love the restaurant scene here in Kabul. I also love meeting local vendors and shopkeepers. I don’t think I ever ate so much as when I tried to make a ‘quick’ trip down Chicken Street and ending up eating lunch at every other shop! The countryside and scenery is amazing as well. It seemed that overnight the winter grey was replaced with summer greens, reds, and yellows! But I guess if I had to pick one of the best times, it would be the time I was able to spend with the local kids. When I first told them to call me “Moose,” they instantly translated it to “Mousa” and that is what people know me as to this day. Since coming here, I had people send me items for the kids. I’ve distributed everything from watches, to candy, to skateboards. In working with the girls of SOLA, I’ve donated laptops, thumb drives, calculators, makeup, and school supplies to their students. All of the work with
the children here makes all the sacrifices of being here well worth it!
Worst of times?
This one is easy, I’m an animal lover and it kills me to hear a dog off in the distance yelp. I always carry dog and cat biscuits with me when I’m out so I can make friends with the local strays. Actually, having a pocket full of dog biscuits caused a little bit of a ruckus at ISAF HQ when one of the local bomb dogs “hit” on me after smelling my pockets with beef favored treats in them. Try explaining that to an MP. I’ve fallen in love with more than one dog and cat here and I wish I could take them all home with me.
What will you miss most?
I know this is a cliché of an answer, but it’s true for me. I’ll miss the friends that I made here the most. In life, material goods come and go, but friends are the real treasure you carry with you throughout your life. I’ve met so many great people here that I could fill a magazine just with their names! From local shop keepers, to the drivers and escorts, to the Police Chief, to the local mail clerks at Egger’s to the ever infamous AJ! I will always remember the lessons they have brought to my life and I look forward to seeing them all again someday!
What will you miss the least?
Again, another easy question, I love to sleep with the windows open, and while I have nothing against them, I will not miss the four
DOWN WITH THE KIDS: Eric with some of the children he has helped out
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From La La Landto KabulAfghan-American musician Ariana Delawari’s music mixes sounds from both sides of her life says AUGUST BROWN
photos by Lauren Dukoff
Safe at home in Silver Lake, Ariana, then 27, feared for her parents. But she also feared for her music. Since childhood, she had dreamed of making a record in Afghanistan with local musicians, and she worried that the chance might soon be lost. The Taliban had banned secular music during its rule, and with each new bomb blast it seemed to be closing in once again.
Three years ago, a suicide bomber changed Ariana Delawari’s music career. The singer was on the phone
with her mother, Setara, and Afghanistan was coming undone.
“It’s not looking good here,” Setara said from her home in Kabul. An explosion had just destroyed a building a few blocks away.
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her country deserved more respect, and she thought she could convey that message through music.
In 2002, after the defeat of the Taliban, the country’s finance minister invited her father to join the government as an advisor. Noorullah and Setara moved back to Kabul.
Ariana, who was about to graduate from USC with a degree in film production, stayed behind. A folk singer and songwriter, she was working her way into the local music scene. She had performed at Eastside clubs and caught the attention of film director David Lynch, who told her he’d like to produce her album one day.
In 2007, four months after that conversation with her father about recording in Afghanistan, Ariana and her two-piece band stepped off a plane into Kabul’s dust-choked traffic.
Her father’s bulletproof car jostled past wary locals and ruined buildings. At the gates of the family’s home, armed guards waved them in, and soon the band was walled off from the chaos of the city. Peacocks and doves pecked in her father’s aviary.
Relaxing with tea and peanut butter sandwiches in the yard, Ariana and the group prepared for the recording sessions. Lynch’s wife, Emily, began filming. She thought the sessions would make a compelling documentary.
Ariana’s bandmate Max Guirand had agreed to produce the album; on the flight from Los Angeles, he plowed through “Pro Tools for Dummies” to brush up on his recording skills. Paloma Udovic, a classically schooled violinist, would help create a musical bridge between
Later that day, she made a decision. She called her father, Noorullah.
“Dad,” she said. “I want to record my album in Kabul.”
“What can I do to help?” he asked.Western rock acts, from the Beatles
to Vampire Weekend, have often looked abroad for new sounds or ideas about art and spirituality. Ariana had something more personal in mind. She wanted to explore her identity as an Afghan and an Angeleno, to explain her feelings about being from two places at once.
“I wanted the history of the land and the story of the land to come through the musicians,” she said recently. “The phone call sent me on a quest. It also sounded really exciting to me -- the idea of bringing my friends on a caravan.”
The Delawari family moved to Southern California from Afghanistan in 1970. Noorullah had recently graduated from the London School of Economics. Setara had family here, and the couple settled in La Cañada Flintridge to be close to her brothers and sisters. Noorullah became a vice president at Lloyds Bank California, but they were never far from the politics of Kabul.
After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, their house grew crowded with relatives fleeing the violence. Ariana grew up listening to stories about their country and to the traditional music her family played at all-night dinner parties.
A cheerleader at La Cañada High and an avid Madonna and Jimi Hendrix fan, she often found her Afghan heritage ignored, misunderstood, even disparaged. She knew
the western sounds and the traditional Afghan instrumentation.
By then, Ariana’s father had become a respected government figure. He had overseen the revaluation of the Afghan currency, and in 2005 President Hamid Karzai appointed him governor of the country’s central bank.
He borrowed audio equipment, hired an engineer and recruited three musicians - virtuosos of the rabab, dilruba and tabla, sitar-like and percussive instruments that form the core of Central Asian music -to accompany his daughter.
These men were known as ustads - instrumental masters - and when Ariana listened to them play, she wondered if her songwriting and arranging skills were up to their standards.
They told her how they’d had to wrap their instruments in cloth and bury them in their yards when the Taliban took over.
Ariana hoped their collaboration could help music-loving cultures in Los Angeles and Afghanistan empathize with each other. But reality kept intruding on her idealism. The electricity went out frequently, and the musicians had to use noisy gas generators and line the studio walls with blankets and carpets to mute the sound.
Tensions arose among Ariana, Guirand and Udovic over their vision for the music. When they bickered, Ariana felt she was letting down both her friends and her family. She wondered if she had set her expectations too high.
The problems “stripped my heart down,” she said. “But I had to ask myself, ‘How
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instruments didn’t cohere with her California folk songs. She heard the friction of her own identity in the music.
When she shared her difficulties with the Lynches, David took her to his Hollywood Hills studio to re-imagine the music. His film soundtracks often showcase a spectral female voice, and he had grown interested in producing an album of similar material.
Lynch refined each of the Kabul tracks to make it sound pristine, then added rich reverbs and echoes and new string arrangements by L.A. composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson that charged the Afghan sounds and Ariana’s folk
tunes with haunting, incantatory feelings.“Every artist has a family history, but hers is so timely,” Lynch said. “Her
music paints a very different and more beautiful picture of Afghanistan than what you usually hear about that country.”“Lion of Panjshir,” released
in October on Lynch’s label, David Lynch MC, confronts the idea of Afghanistan as a violent, unknowable land. The album uses hypnotic Eastern instruments to explore classic folk themes. In the
ustads’ accompaniment, flurries of melody ride a single bass note to
create a trance-like sound similar to that of Indian raga music. When those
sounds are paired with Ariana’s clear alto and strong acoustic guitar strums,
the songs become intimate and accessible.Her lyrics similarly live in both worlds.
In “San Francisco,” she’s the insouciant Californian: “Tried some dresses on in
badly do you want this? This is more important than fear.’”
After two weeks, Ariana and her friends returned to Los Angeles with a laptop full of unmixed sound files. Guirand and Udovic stopped playing with her; the recording had emotionally exhausted them. With no band and no record label, Ariana didn’t know what to do next.
Surrounded by her rabab rabab and tapestries and photos from previous Afghan trips, Ariana listened to the Kabul session files. The music seemed broken. The songs dominated by Eastern
suspected of orchestrating his assassination in 2001.
Many Afghans revere Massoud for fighting imperialists and religious zealots alike. Ariana saw him as an artistic role model as well, someone who recognized how a shared culture could hold a people together in the face of war.
“He knew the West, and could have gone and made a life there,” she said. “But he stayed and fought. Yet he always encouraged his soldiers to read poetry.”
If her political songs seem naive, they nonetheless show a young American woman
upper Haight, and those skirts fell above my knees. They made me want to . . . say, ‘Ooh, come my way.’ “
In “Be Gone Taliban,” she finds the kiss-off spirit of punk in images of her ancient country: “My name’s the land, it’s older than you,” she sings over a spooky tabla arrangement. “What you don’t know is this land is older than the snow.”
The album’s title is the nom de guerre of mujahedin leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Massoud left an upper-class life to fight the Soviets and later Osama bin Laden, who is
STOP THE WAR: Ariana’s two aunts and mother in Los Angeles in 1980 protesting against the Soviet invasion
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to go on tour and is finishing the documentary with Emily Lynch.
All her life she struggled to explain her identity and her country to Americans. As a child, she’d been mistaken for Mexican. As a young woman, she’d listened to friends talk about Afghans and terrorists as if they were the same, and after graduating from USC, she worked as an actress and often read for Central Asian roles that felt like cheap stereotypes.
Now she had something real. In January, Ariana’s phone rang again. It was her father in Kabul. He was OK, but a bomber had struck the central bank.
brimming with hope for her family’s country and rage at what others have made of it.
On a bright October morning in 2009, Ariana met her parents at Casbah, a coffee shop in Silver Lake.
After Karzai’s disputed reelection last year, Setara had returned to California. Noorullah, by then head of the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency and an advisor to Karzai, was in town for a brief visit.
Over tea and sandwiches, they talked about their country and shared stories of Ariana’s childhood. They were proud of her debut album.
Now, Ariana is putting together a new band
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A US Marine patrols outside Forward Operating Base Castle during evening prayers in the town of Khan Neshin, Helmand, October 25, 2009
Helmandthrough a lenseSerial Helmand-addict MIKHAIL GALUSTOV embedded with the US Marines in one of Afghanistan’s most war-torn provinces
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Villagers pose near a shop in the Baluch tribal settlement, a deserted rural area two hours walk from Forward Operating Base Massoud, Garmsir district, Helmand
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Local villagers in the main bazaar of Nawa district, Helmand, December 18, 2009
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A boy stands on the edge of the Baluch tribal settlement in a deserted rural area outside the Petrol Base Massoud, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on November 28, 2009
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war, Taliban and terror.“People of the world think that the Afghan
people are only involved in the war and I think that cricketers show the world that we are not warriors. We are peaceful and we want a good relationship with the world. I think that the cricket players have acted as ambassadors for the country,” says Raees Ahmadzai, a middle order batsman and one of the senior members of the Afghan team.
Originally from the village of Azra in Logar Province, Raees and his family had to flee Afghanistan during the Russian invasion in the 1970’s. Part of the nomadic Kuchi tribe, they had to settle in Kachagari refugee camp where
For most Afghans the rise of the Afghan cricket team seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, but for those in the know – this tournament was a labour of love, hard work and a very fitting end to a fairytale journey that has spanned more than a decade.
The storyline could have come out of a Hollywood blockbuster: young refugees who grew up playing cricket on rocky concrete pitches with no shoes, using sticks for bats and wound up cloth for balls, finally were being given the opportunity to pad up against their cricketing heroes, and more importantly were given the chance to show the world that Afghanistan has more to offer than headlines of
The Afghan cricket team was making history. Newbie Afghan cricket commentators perched in their radio boxes ready to broadcast live to 30 million Afghans on Salam Watander. Most of those listening didn’t know what a wicket was, and perhaps they still don’t, but what happened on May 1 was something all Afghans could be proud of. Afghanistan’s cricket team had arrived on the international stage, ready to take on India in the ICC World Twenty 20 tournament.
It was the steel drums playing the Afghan National anthem that got me. We had traveled and filmed with the Afghan team
for two years and nothing said “we have arrived” like hearing the tinny calypso of Milli Surood echoing across the Beausejour Cricket Ground in St. Lucia on May 1.
Cheerleaders in hot pants with their faces painted and colored feathers gyrating to the hypnotic drums coaxed the pasty skinned spectators waving Afghan flags to get involved.
Caribbean callsfor Afghan cricket Documentary maker and unlikely cricket groupie LESLIE KNOTT travelled to Barbados to watch the Afghan cricket team make history
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The historic tournament in Pakistan went ahead with 24 players travelling to Karachi. Of those 24 players, five players are still key members of the National Cricket team; Nawruz Mangal (Captain), Raees Ahmadzai, Dawlat Ahmadzai, Mohammad Nabi, and Karim Sediq.
After the tournament in Pakistan, which Afghanistan unfortunately lost, they decided that Afghanistan should be a cricketing nation. They started to cobble together an Afghan Cricket Federation and a proper team. Although facilities were still non-existent, Afghanistan was given the opportunity to participate in the ACC trophy in Malaysia in 2004. In this
Raees was raised, and was first introduced to cricket.
The first time Raees came to Afghanistan was in December 2001. He came back for cricket. He had heard that the Afghanistan team that had been loosely formed in Kabul was about to travel to Pakistan for their first international match. Raees wanted to be on that team.
“At that time, when I crossed the border I was so sad for the condition that Afghanistan had become. No facilities, no roads, everyone looked in tension and I was so sad that Afghanistan had fallen so far behind the rest of the world,” recalls Ahmadzai.
travelled to the island of Jersey where they participated in Division Five, the lowest division of competition. They won the first place trophy in that tournament, and celebrated with the attan on the pitch. Five months later in October, 2008 they went to Dar-e-Salam in Tanzania and competed in the ICC Division Four tournament which they also won first place in. At this point the Ministry of Haj was very excited about their success, and the Afghan Cricket team was awarded a trip to Haj in December 2008. This prepared them very well for their next tournament which was held in Argentina in January 2009. The team travelled for days to
tournament the Afghans beat Bahrain. This was the very first win for Afghan cricket. “When we won that game against Bahrain we felt that if this is possible, anything is possible and we felt that with hard work we could achieve more and from that point on we took cricket very seriously,” remembers Ahmadzai.
When Afghanistan started playing cricket they were ranked 87 out of 116 countries. Now Afghanistan is number 12 in the world. Not bad for a country that doesn’t even have a proper cricket stadium.
Afghanistan rose through the ICC Divisions in lightening speed. In May, 2008 the team
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PROUD MOMENT: Team members stand behind local children during the Afghan national anthem | Leslie Knott BIG GUNS: Shapoor Zadran celebrates a catch | Leslie Knott
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Leslie Knott in co-director of Out of the Ashes, the documentary of the Afghan cricket team’s journey to the World Cup. It will air this Autumn on BBC Storyville.
status, and more importantly it also meant that the team was given the opportunity to qualify for the ICC World Twenty20 which took place in February 2010.
This time the Afghans showed up and weren’t taking no for an answer. Playing in Dubai Sport City, with 10,000 Afghan fans looking on, they qualified and won first place in the ICC World Twenty20 qualifier. It was a salve for the wound of being denied a place at the ICC World Cup 2011.
Their success in Dubai meant they were finally competing in a world class competition that would be televised. Their trip to the West Indies was for many of the team, a dream come true. It was a long deserved reward for all of their hard work. Although both games against India and South Africa ended in losses, the
reach Beunos Aires, but it was well worth the journey as they left Argentina with another first place trophy in hand, and the opportunity to compete in the World Cup qualifying round in South Africa in April 2009.
Afghanistan was the very first team to rise through the ranks from Division Five to the World Cup Qualifier in such a short time. The Afghan cricket team had truly made history. But then in South Africa, the dream for the 2011 World Cup died. Their performance early in the competition wasn’t strong enough, and although they beat teams such as Scotland and Ireland in the Super Eights, they still didn’t manage to secure one of the top four places that would have gained them entry to the ICC 2011 World Cup. But their performance was good enough to gain One Day International
camps around the country for young boys. Captain Nawruz Mangal recently held an AYCSO camp in Khost. “Many youngsters want to play cricket for Afghanistan and they want to become like the national team players. When I did the camp in Khost recently, we only had enough funding for 50 children to participate in the camp, but 12, 000 children turned up. It was very amazing,” said Nawruz.
The team also have started a website called Proud to be an Afghan (www.proudtobeanafghan.com). They want to build schools in the villages that their families come from, and are hoping to sell Proud to be an Afghan cricket jersey’s and signed bats, caps, photos and posters to raise the money.
team made the mark they wanted to. Cricket journalists from around the world praised the team on their effort and the fact that they could walk away from the defeat with their heads held high.
The team have come a long way in the past two years. They fly first class whilst two years ago most of them hadn’t been on a plane before. They keep in touch with their families and fans through Facebook and Skype. They recently participated in a Bollywood directed, highly stylised advertisement for Etisalat that aired inside Afghanistan.
They are also keen to give something back to Afghanistan. Most of the team work with AYCSO, an NGO working with the MCC and Afghan Connection that organises cricket
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NATIONAL HEROES: The Afghan national cricket team | Leslie Knott
SOLE SUPPORTER: One of the growing legion of Afghanistan fans | Leslie Knott
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They have all the poster’s key attributes in spades. Indeed, it’s hard to think of a more agreeable bunch of enthusiastic young men, who chatter in excellent English. The only problem is the one characteristic they all lack: the ability to ski.
Last week, they had their first taste of the rapidly melting spring snow, out on the slopes of the stunning Koh-e-Baba mountain range. Their motley collection of borrowed and secondhand skis had been carted up the lush valley on the back of a donkey. The rookie skiers had ignored the classroom guidance to layer
In a classroom just a few hundred metres from the towering niche that once housed a giant Buddha statue, someone has pinned
up a poster detailing the attributes of a good ski guide: optimistic, articulate, patient, reliable, active, cheerful, punctual and extroverted.
Sitting around a table in the middle of the room, the 10 young men who hope to become Afghanistan’s first ski guides are being taught how to avoid avalanches, and the importance of taking enough food and water on trips up the snow-capped mountains that loom over the town of Bamiyan.
Bamiyan preparesfor a wintertourism take offJON BOONE reports on the ski experts who say that in five years time Bamiyan could be a “world class” ski destination
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and maybe even some heliskiing. To start with, it is hoped that a mix of Afghans and foreigners working in Kabul will help pump-prime a ski industry, after which Bamiyan will be ready for the world. “We hope that people in Europe and the US will put it on their five-year wish list,” Dear says.
He and Ashley are currently spending several days a week exploring Bamiyan’s unskied peaks, with the aim of publishing a guidebook later in the year giving adventure skiers some basic information on what the Koh-e-Baba range has to offer. And while it would be easy to be cynical about trying to establish skiing in a war zone, after spending a few days with Dear, Ashley and the would-be ski guides, I am soon swept up in their enthusiasm.
For a particular type of tourist, Bamiyan is quite a draw. But it will never appeal to those who like the chairlifts, restaurants and creature comforts of a European or American mega-resort. In Bamiyan, if you want to get to the top of slope you have to propel yourself, using Telemark skis where the ankle is free to move up and down and synthetic skins are attached to the bottom. It’s the sort of old-school skiing that would have been familiar to skiers in the Alps in the 1950s: a day of gruelling ascent for perhaps just one or two runs back down to the bottom. But it’s worth it, says Dear: “The terrain here is just fantastic in so many ways, and we have only been exploring the eight valleys that are closest to Bamiyan centre. There are literally thousands of opportunities for beginners and experts.”
Dear thinks many tourists will elect to stay above the snowline for days, skiing over huge areas, overnighting in shelters used by
up, and hit the slopes wearing jeans and fake designer tops. Soon they were shivering.
They had just half a dozen pairs of skis, two pairs of which were borrowed from an American couple, Chad Dear and Laurie Ashley, ski consultants who believe central Afghanistan has some of the best “outback skiing” in the world. The shortage of equipment is a problem, and the mix of Telemark and alpine skis had been partly supplemented by a few pairs of “bazaar skis”, lethal wooden planks knocked up by enthusiastic local carpenters. With the bindings little more than a few leather straps and the undersurface wrapped with metal, the overall effect is terrifying, as I discovered when I tried them.
“Jon, you’ve never done this either!” was the crushing verdict of Abdullah Mahmood, a 25-year-old novice skier, after he had watched me flounder around for a traumatic 10 minutes during which I wondered whether, despite decades of skiing experience, the sport was finally about to claim a broken leg from me.
These are the deeply humble beginnings out of which Bamiyan, an impoverished but heart-stoppingly beautiful province, hopes to develop a robust ski industry. There is serious weight behind the plan to encourage winter “ecotourism” here, including the province’s governor, the Aga Khan Development Network and the New Zealand government (the country has troops in the province).
Dear, a development worker from Montana, says that in a few years’ time Bamiyan could boast ski-rental businesses (which will probably rely, at least to start with, on the charity of the big ski manufacturers), a nursery slope with a simple tow-lift to drag beginners to the top,
LONG WAY UP: Skiers have to get themselves to the top | Chad Dear
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Bamiyan – contributing much-needed cash to subsistence farmers in the high, isolated valleys of a poor and neglected province that could use all the help it can get. Not only were the famous giant Buddhas blown up by theTaliban in 2001; the fundamentalist militia was also responsible for massacres of the largely Hazara population (Afghanistan’s most put-upon ethnic group).
Today Bamiyan is an island of security in a country where insurgency has spread like a virus, and the valley is Afghanistan’s main (or rather, only) tourist attraction. Visitors don’t come simply for the World Heritage site where the Buddhas used to stand, but also the lakes and extraordinary natural dams of Band-e-Amir.
farmers in the summer that could be converted into winter refuges. And it’s a fair bet that Bamiyan’s apres-ski scene will never boast beery Brits, downing glühwein at the bottom of the chairlifts as the sun sets over the mountains. Instead it’s chai, and maybe some rice, naan and greasy meat on the roof of a farmer’s house.
What Dear calls the “apres-tea” experience would be worth a holiday in itself. First of all, the scenery is extraordinary. Below the snowy peaks, farmers living in mud houses busily plough their fields with ox teams. The sense of time travel is only broken with the occasional sighting of a satellite dish, a sign that, after years of neglect, things are starting to pick up here. And that is the other benefit of skiing in
1,000, creating at least 1,000 jobs. He expects 10,000 foreign visitors and 100,000 Afghans to come each year, generating around $5m for the valley, excluding income from drivers, restaurants and handicraft shops.
That’s big money for Bamiyan, and it would make tourism its third major source of income, behind agriculture and mining. “It’s all about getting Bamiyan ready, helping hotel owners improve their facilities, so that when we are ready to receive more tourists it will be the people of Bamiyan who benefit and not outsiders,” says Foladi.
And the wind is in Bamiyan’s sails, with various plans to make the valley more accessible. Currently there are two main land
The young men who aspire to be ski guides already try to make ends meet by showing tourists the main sites in the summer.
But despite Bamiyan’s considerable charms, the summer tourism market does not add up to much: last year its historic sites were visited by 1,560 Afghans and 756 foreigners (slightly down on 2008, probably because of disruption caused by last year’s presidential election). Even those low numbers generates around $250,000 a year in the three hotels the tourist authorities have information on.
But Amir Foladi, manager of the Bamiyan ecotourism programme, wants to see that increase. He hopes that by 2015 the 116 hotel beds currently available will have increased to
COMMUNITY SKI: Young people are encouraged to take up the sport | Chad DearNURSERY SLOPE: A girl takes her first skiing lesson from Laurie Ashley | Chad Dear
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Bamiyan is the place for anyone who wants “some pretty challenging skiing”.
“For everyone else, there is just the sheer amount of snow and a season that in a normal year should continue until late May or early June,” he says.
The big unknown is whether Afghans will take up skiing in any numbers. Dear and Ashley say the locals, who are already fond of sledding on homemade yakhmolaks and other winter games, have been enthusiastic. With everything under snow for five months of the year, they could certainly do with more winter distractions, says Foladi.
And skiing is not totally unknown in Afghanistan. Afghans got involved in the sport back in the 1960s and 70s, when it was last popularised by foreigners. In those days Kabul’s diplomatic classes headed for the slopes at weekends at a mini-resort close to the capital. The piste even had its own basic rope-tow and was serviced by restaurants, tea shops and even a sunbathing area for the foreigners. Various ski clubs, including one run by the ministry of education and another by Kabul University, raced against each other. With the Soviet invasion of 1979, and the national resistance that rose up to fight it, the area was soon seeded with landmines and became unusable.
Mohammad Yousuf Kargar first encountered skiing as a young boy when he saw a German employee of Siemens throwing himself down a hill in Kabul. He has kept the sport going, at least within his own family. Now the national football team coach, Kargar tested the slopes of Bamiyan for the first time this winter. But he believes Bamiyan is still too far away from Kabul to be the focus of a skiing rebirth. Instead
routes from Kabul: the slow but safe road via the Sibher Pass, which despite being only 200km [124 miles] takes a gruelling eight hours, or the relatively fast but potentially lethal four-hour road trip through Taliban territory to the south.
The Sibher Pass route, which takes travellers through some unforgettable landscapes, is currently being flattened and widened by hundreds of workers, most of whom were last week inexplicably wearing fluorescent orange Royal Mail jackets. When the road is finished and covered with asphalt, the whole journey should take less than four hours – a much more attractive proposition for weekenders from Kabul who want a few days’ skiing.
The country’s airlines are being lobbied to start commercial flights, which may one day land at a new airport out of town. That will replace the current dirt airstrip – among the hazards of flying into Bamiyan is livestock wandering on to the runway.
And it’s just possible that Bamiyan may get its Buddhas back – although this is currently the subject of a debate among conservationists, over whether the statues should be pieced back together from recovered fragments, or rebuilt afresh. Foladi says he favours the reconstruction of one Buddha, leaving one empty niche as a permanent reminder of unhappier times.
But will Bamiyan ever become more than a summer destination, even with these improvements? Ken Adams, Bamiyan’s first ever ski tourist, thinks so. A former ski industry worker in the French Alps, he is now a project manager for an NGO in Kabul. Paying just $30 a night for a hotel room, he skied for seven days in Bamiyan this spring. Despite some hairy moments involving avalanches, he reckons
a hotel. I was blissfully unaware of another terrible day in Afghanistan’s second city as we trudged down muddy fields towards our apres-ski lunch. Later that day, a compound housing foreign contractors was attacked by an even bigger bomb.
Adams wonders whether it might be possible to fly into Kabul airport and then transfer directly on to a Bamiyan flight – essentially isolating the province from the rest of the country as far as foreign tourists are concerned. But, as Dear says, Bamiyan can only remain a bubble for so long. “You’ve just got to have hope that things are going to get better in Afghanistan. If the country goes down, Bamiyan will go with it.”
he takes his family to the Salang, a mountain pass north of Kabul. “The government really needs to take a strong decision to redevelop the old piste outside Kabul,” he says. “In the meantime I am taking my family in the Salang because I don’t want this sport to die in Afghanistan.”
Even though Bamiyan is so untouched by violence that it feels like another country, Dear’s hope that it might be ready for foreign visitors in five years seems optimistic at a time when the Taliban insurgency continues to strengthen.
Around the time I was embarrassing myself on the wooden skis, Kandahar city was rocked by a massive vehicle bomb parked outside
DIY SKI: Local carpenters have come up with their own skis | Chad Dear
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Afghan EssentialsWhere to stay, where to eat, where to Shop. And how to pay for it.Afghan Scene Making Life Easier
Hotels and Guesthouses
Kabul Serena HotelFroshgah Streetwww.serenahotels.comTel: 0799 654 000
Safi Landmark Hotel & SuitesCharahi Ansariwww.safilandmarkhotelsuites.comTel: 0202 203 131
The Inter Continental HotelBaghe Bala Roadwww.intercontinentalkabul.comTel: 0202 201 321
Gandamack Lodge HotelSherpur [email protected]: 0700 276 937, 0798 511 111
Mustafa HotelCharahi Sadaratwww.mustafahotel.comTel: 070 276 021
Heetal Plaza HotelStreet 14, Wazir Akbar Khanwww.heetal.comTel: 0799 167 824, 0799 159 697
UNICA Guest HouseKolola Pushta, oppositeRoyal Mattress Tel: 0797 676 357
The International ClubHaji Yaqoob Square, Street 3, Shar-e Naw. Tel: 0774 763 858
Golden Star HotelCharrhay Haji Yaqoob,Shar-e Naw. www.kabulgolden-starhotel.comTel: 0799 333 088, 0799 557 281
Roshan HotelCharaye Turabaz Khan,Shar-e Naw.Tel: 0799 335 424
Restaurants
DeliveryEasyfoodDelivers from any restaurant to your homewww.easyfood.afTel: 0796 555 000, 0796 555 001
AfghanRumiQala-e Fatullah Main Rd, between Streets 5 & 6Tel: 0799 557 021
SufiMuslim Street, Shar-e Nawwww.sufi.com.af Tel: 0774 212 256, 0700 210 651
Herat RestaurantShar-e Naw, main road,Diagonally opposite Cinema Park
Khosha RestaurantAbove the Golden Star Hotel. Tel: 0799 888 999
Mixed/WesternThe LoungeLane 2, left, off Street 15, Wazir Akbar Khan. Tel: 0796 174 718, 0700 037 634
Fat Man/What-a-Burger CafeWazir Akbar Khan, main road, On the bend near Masoud Circle Tel: 0700 298 301, 0777 151 510
L’AtmosphereStreet 4, TaimaniTel: 0798 224 982, 0798 413 872
Flower Street CaféStreet 2, Qala-e Fatullah.Tel: 0700 293 124, 0799 356 319
Cabul Coffeehouse & CaféStreet 6, on the left, Qale-e Fat-ullah Tel: 0752 005 275
Le BistroOne street up from Chicken Street, Behind the MOI,Shar-e Naw Tel: 0799-598852
Red Hot Sizzlin’ SteakhouseDistrict 16, Macroyan 1, Nader Hill Area Tel: 0799 733 468
Le Pelican Cafe du KabulDarulaman Road, almostopposite the Russian Embassy.Bright orange guard box.
Tex MexLa CantinaThird left off Butcher St,Shar-e NawTel: 0798 271 915
LebaneseTaverne du LibanStreet 15, Lane 3, Wazir Akbar Khan Tel: 0799 828 376
The GrillStreet 15, Wazir Akbar Khan.Tel: 0799 818 283,0799 792 879
Cedar HouseBehind Kabul City Centre, Shar-e Naw Tel: 0799-121412
TurkishIstanbulMain road, on the left, between Massoud Circle Jalalabad Road Roundabout. Tel: 0799-407818
IranianShandizPakistan Embassy Street, off Street 14 Wazir Akbar KhanTel: 0799-342928
Italian/PizzaEverest PizzaStreet 10, Wazir Akbar Khanwww.everestpizza.comTel: 0700 263 636, 0779 317 979
Bella ItaliaStreet 14, Wazir Akbar KhanTel: 0799 600 666
Springfield RestaurantLane 3, Street 15,Wazir Akbar Khan Tel: 0799 001 520
IndianNamasteStreet 15, Wazir Akbar Khan,Between lanes 2 and 3 on the right. Tel: 0772 011 120
Delhi DarbarShar-e Naw, close to UK Sports Tel: 0799 324 899
Anar RestaurantLane 3, Street 14,Wazir Akbar KhanTel: 0799 567 291
ChineseGolden Key SeafoodRestaurantLane 4, Street 13, Wazir Akbar Khan. Tel: 0799 002 800, 0799 343 319
ThaiMai ThaiHouse 38, Lane 2, Street 15, Wazir Akbar Khan Tel:0796 423 040
KoreanNew WorldBetween Charayi Haji Yacub and Charayi Ansari, on the right. Shar-e Naw. Tel: 0799 199 509
Supermarkets, Grocers & Butchers
A-OneBottom of Shar-e Naw Park
ChelseaShar-e Naw main road, opposite Kabul Bank
SpinneysWazir Akbar Khan, opposite British Embassy
FinestWazir Akbar Khan Roundabout
Fat Man ForestWazir Akbar Khan, main road.
Enyat Modern ButcherQala-e Fatullah main road,Near street four
ATMs
Kabul City Centre, Shar-e Naw (AIB
AIB Main Office, Opposite Camp Egg-ers (AIB)
AIB Shar-e Naw Branch, next to Chelsea Supermarket (AIB)
HQ ISAF, Outside Cianos Pizzeria, US Embassy Street (AIB)
KAIA Military Airbase, Outside Cianos Pizzeria, Airport (AIB)
Finest Supermarket, Wazir Akbar Khan (AIB)
World Bank Guard Hut, Street 15 Wazir Akbar Khan (Standard Chartered)
Standard Chartered Branch, Street 10, Wazir Akbar Khan (Standard Chartered)
Want to get on the AfghanEssentials list of places to eatand sleep?Contact [email protected]
Essential scene
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CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK: Prince Charles is presented with a ceremonial chopping board as Rory, Shoshana and Thalia look on
BAA’RTY ANIMALS: Luc plays with his dinner at the Street Four farewell bonanza
THE NOISY AMERICAN: Tim Fox holds forth at Diggler’s salon
SWEETIE TIME: Drug-busting Nina shows off a cache of amphetamines found at Casa Druet
DANGER KUEHN: Would-be journalist Felix strikes an MSM pose in Kandahar
CHARLIE’S ANGELS: Beeb team Jon, Ian and Shelly flank Prince Charles and Lynne
RAISING THE BARR: Heather goes for the traditional look
BLUE’S THAT LADY?: Carol cuts a dash in a saucy burqa robe
SHINY HAIRY PEOPLE: Sam, George and Hamid get manly at Kabuliwood
Be sceneShare your event or party pics with Aghan Scene. email [email protected]
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ALPHABET TROUP: - ABC’s Kabul corr Nick with embassy friend Siobhan at Kabuliwood
ROSH PIT: Mobile team Morris, Farah and Al-Karim get down at Kabuliwood
NO NEED TO COVEN UP: Rare picture of Lianne, Ashley, Emily and Paula at a meeting of the women’s jirga
PINK MIST: Ex-army man Daz and Helen
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: Runaway writer PJ Tobia between the scarlet lovelies Paula and Lianne
SLYOPS: Propaganda man James tries to influence Brigette at Kabulliwood
TALI-(RAY)-BANS: Shade clad boppers Jerome and Tara at the Film Project fundraiser
SAY CHEESE: Emily and hubbie Ray at Kabuliwood
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BEARDIE WEIRDIE: Jon and Matt experiment with their Robin Cook puppet
TURBANATOR: Phil and Lynne and a touch of the JC’s
FOX ME: Glam gang Sam, Tara, Jules and Connormake plans at Kabuliwood
GLITTER AUNTIE: Beeb man Quentin and Bunny out on the town
GRILL POWER: Martini team Pir Mohammed Bakhshi and pal on a break
CAPTION HERE
FETE ATTENCION: Party man Jerome freed from the Kabul clink WRITING’S ON THE TALL: Travis and Fredrick at the Graffiti farewell
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Goodbyeto the donIn demand DJ, restaurateur and occasional telecoms lawyerTIMUR NUSRATTY wishes Kabul a fond farewell
Best of times?
Too many to list really. So many beautiful memories. Meeting some of the most amazing people one can ever hope to meet in life. Finding love. Dinners in the garden when the weather permitted. Driving to Bamiyan in summer 2005 and camping out on Band-e-Amir. When my parents visited in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Watching the World Cup at L’Atmosphere during Summer 2006. DJ’ing with the Beast. Many, many amazing times.
Worst of times?
The months leading up to my father’s death in April 2009 when I was here and he was in Northern California and knowing there was nothing any of us could do to change the course of destiny.
What will you miss the most?
My friends and colleagues. Our house on 4th Street, Taimani. Flower Street Café. Roshan. Afghanistan.
What will you miss the least?
The tendency of people who live here to not own up to mistakes and not follow through (I am guilty of this tendency just as much as anyone else).
Favourite place in Afghanistan?
Our house on 4th Street, Taimani. Flower Street Café.
What happens next?
We hope to settle in a city that appeals to us and find work that fulfills us. I know it sounds like I’m simplifying things, but I’ve learned that a loose plan is always better than something that’s too rigid.
Departing words?
Keep on keepin’ on Afghanistan. You will find your way…
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A DJ SAVED MY LIFE: Coghlan in musical nirvana as Walsh looks on
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Much planned for spring-break this year?
Gents, we only have 6 months to win this war (before the next unit takes over) so, we have come up with this to assist us.
We don’t know what it’s for yet but we’re calling it ‘The Wheel”
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