Mar 9, 2011

What we don't know

It’s been nearly four weeks since I’ve been back in Kabul. You’d have thought there’d have been at least one blog worthy event. Well, yes, there have been several ... suicide attacks, snow storms, shootouts, parties, excursions ... it just goes past in a blur sometimes.

Part of the reason for not blogging about what’s news here is that what you think you know one day turns out to be something very different the next. I mean, who really knows what’s happening with the private security companies. First Hamid Karzai described them as thieves and mercenaries and gave them an end of year deadline to pack their bags and get out ... then he softened and said those protecting embassies, reconstruction projects and convoys could stay ...  now I read in the Guardian that he has all but rescinded the entire order and will be allowing 11 contractors  with “a good record” to say. Among those groups, the Guardian says, is Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, a private security firm whose behaviour has already seen it thrown out of Iraq. Chalk one up to the west!  

A few days after I got back, on Feb. 14, there was a suicide attack on a shopping centre moderately full of Afghans buying presents for their girlfriends/boyfriends. Yep, believe it or not, Afghanistan, home to the ultra conservative Taliban, loves Valentine’s Day. Go figure!

Anyway, like with most things in Afghanistan, the story has several shades of reality. 
Our first lead was that a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of Kabul City Centre, a rather empty mall attached to a hotel often used by aid workers for meetings, and which is known among the foreign crowd for its cheap knock off DVDs. Anyway, this bomber blew himself up, but, according to witnesses and other random sources, there were another two insurgents who had made their way into the building and were in a shootout with police.
We even had a quote from a “witness” saying he saw the other two attackers enter the mall, and then heard explosions and gunfire for about five minutes.
Except, that’s not what happened.

Our editor in chief was at the mall, or about 10 metres away, intending to buy a gift for his Valentine – his second wife, but that’s another rant. What he said he saw was one suicide bomber, who was shot, in the leg, by two security guards. As the guards approached him (duh!) he blew himself up, and all three were killed. One of those guards had five children.
There was no second or third, or as in some reports, fourth gunman/bomber. And the firing, he said, was caused by the arrival of the police, who, being kids and spooked, started shooting up the place.

Here’s another example. Two weeks ago, I had a few friends round for dinner. That morning, four rockets – possibly three or maybe five – were fired at something, no one really knows for sure what the target was, but they fell close to where two of my friends lived. One friend spent an hour in a safe bunker, the other was told to stay in her room.  An hour later, the all clear was sounded, everyone returned to work without so much as a follow up mail.

So that evening, I guess everyone is spooked because there have been far too many reports of suicide bombers roaming  the streets looking for targets. Every other day, there is a new alert for one restaurant or another. Someone I know, who has close ties to intelligence and security contractors, sent out a rare text advising his friends to stay away from high-profile western restaurants  and bars for 10 days. Ten days, what is there an expiry date on suicide bombers, they self-detonate after 10 days if they haven't found a target? 
So there we were at home, eating vegetarian shepherd’s pie, drinking our overpriced $25/bottle red wine, and pretending Afghanistan was just another developing country, whe “beep, beep, beep”, the first security alerts start coming through.
At first, and it’s always vague: “Incident at the Lebanese. No movement.”
Well, what incident, and which Lebanese? There are two Lebanese restaurants we usually go to; the Grill and the Taverna.
The second comes through: “Shooting at Lebanese. No movement.”
Then nothing. We go online, looking to see if any of the media had picked up the story. They hadn’t, so we rationalise it must be something small and continue with our dinner party. 

The next morning, amid the stories of foreigners having to be airlifted off the roof of the restaurant, my housemate shows me the security briefing she received by email on the shooting. It seems one guard at La Taverna restaurant accidentally set off a security alarm. Spooked by his own actions, he started to run. A second guard thought he was an attacker and shot him.
Ridiculous, but true.  So you shrug, you joke about the incompetence of the guards and police and shake your head about Afghanistan taking the lead on its security, and then you let it go.  
But, that wasn't the end of the story.
A few nights ago, I sat in a bar with a friend and her security detail. I mentioned the Taverna shooting to him as a way to discuss the capacity of police and security guards here. He looks at me quizzically. “It wasn’t the Taverna, it was the Golden Key, the Chinese restaurant."