Suicide Bomb Brings Taleban War to Kabul Suburbs

   

Insurgents strike with apparent impunity, and promise an intensifying campaign of attacks.

By Jean MacKenzie and Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 267, 02-Oct-07)

Kart-e-Parwan counts as one of the safest areas in Kabul. Largely residential, it does not boast the large foreign presence of flashier neighbourhoods. There are no embassies or big offices, just houses, shops, a cinema and a park.

In the early morning, herds of goats and sheep cross the main road, and day-labourers gather on the corner near a fruit seller’s cart, waiting for someone to come and hire their muscle for a few hours. Children hurry by on their way to school, the girls in white headscarves, the boys with rucksacks slung over their backs.

IWPR’s offices are in the heart of Kart-e-Parwan, nestled beside a family-planning clinic and over the road from a mosque and a bread kiosk. The latter is closed in the mornings because it is the month of Ramadan, and it will not open until closer to evening, when the fast is broken.

It is the kind of place where neighbours know each other and swap greetings in the street, and where a foreign woman can walk alone and do her fruit and vegetable shopping in peace, attended only by friendly cries of “Salaam” and “How are you?”, from the locals, even the occasional “Bonjour” or Russian “Zdravstvuyte”.

The kidnappings and killings that have marred other parts of the city seem very far away here.

That cheerful calm was shattered at seven in the morning on Saturday, September 29, when a suicide bomber wearing the uniform of an Afghan National Army soldier climbed onto a military bus and detonated his explosives. Eyewitnesses say he was carrying a bag.

Officials say at least 30 people died, the majority of them from the Afghan military. Another 29 people were injured.

“I saw the bus stop, and three people with military uniforms got on,” said a security official in Kart-e-Parwan, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “One minute later there was a big explosion, and I saw people lying on the ground on either side of the bus. When we went into the bus, we were able to get 15 injured people out. The rest were dead.”

The security officer said the force of the explosion threw body parts up to the sixth floor of a nearby building which houses the famous Baharistan Cinema. “I collected body parts from up there and we put them in plastic bags,” he said.

Windows in local shops and offices, including IWPR’s premises, were blown out. A small piece of shrapnel penetrated into the newsroom.

A hellish scene greeted eyewitnesses once the smoke had cleared.

“The blast knocked me into a ditch,” said 18-year-old Mustafa, who sells cigarettes by the roadside. “When I got up, there were hands and legs everywhere. I was very scared.”

Faraidun, 21, said friends and neighbours were among those who were killed.

“I saw three brothers - they were house painters,” he said. “They were all dead.”

Two days after the bomb, city workers were still cleaning bits of flesh and broken teeth from trees in the area.

But the real legacy of this bombing is likely to last much longer.

It is now apparent that the Taleban can strike anywhere in the capital. Residents of Kabul will be looking nervously over their shoulders as they go about their daily business, never sure when the next attack will come.

The explosion was one of the largest to date in a city that has seen a rapid rise in violence over the past few months. In June, a bomb rocked a bus full of police officers, killing 35. Just one week ago, a suicide bomber targeted a convoy of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, killing a French soldier.

Kart-e-Parwan was isolated from such horrors, but that is no longer the case.

“This was the most secure area of Kabul,” said Faraidun. “Now the Taleban can target even this kind of place. The government has to do something about it; things are getting worse every day.”

But the Afghan government seems as much at a loss as everyone else.

Zahir Azimi, spokesperson for the defence ministry, limited himself to the usual platitudes about enemies of Islam and the nation.

The Taleban, on the other hand, were full of certainty. Their spokesman for central Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahed, claimed responsibility for the bomb.

IWPR was not able to contact him, but his more media-friendly colleague, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, who speaks for the insurgents in the violence-torn south, was ready to comment.

“This is jihad, and the enemy is going to sustain casualties,” he said. “We are upset about the civilian deaths, but the attack was carried out early in the morning. There are not so many people on the streets at that hour, and the people near the bus worked for the government; they were leaving for their offices.”

The official tally lists six civilians among the injured. The dead were all military personnel, as were the rest of those wounded by the blast.

Qari Yusuf added that with the onset of the holy month of Ramadan, the Taleban had begun a new operation codenamed Nasrat or “Victory”.

“We hope to intensify this operation in the course of the month,” he added.

Kabul residents were unmoved by the Taleban bluster. Instead, they were angry and bitter about the attack and its timing.

“Those who kill during Ramadan are not Muslims,” said Mohammad Saboor, 45. “People are getting ready for Eid, and now all these families will be mourning instead of celebrating.”

Eid al-Fitr is the holiday of feasting and family gatherings that marks the end of the Ramadan fast,

“Whoever the attacker was, he will go to hell,” said Sayed Rahim, 38. “God never gave anyone permission to kill.”

As this report was published, reports came in of a new suicide bombing on October 2, this time targeting a police bus.

Jean MacKenzie is IWPR’s Programme Director in Afghanistan. Wahid Amani is lead trainer and reporter. Aziz Ahmad Tassal, an IWPR staff reporter in Helmand, also contributed to this report.