The new police chief of Khost, the Afghan town once synonymous with al-Qaeda, always knew he had a tough job on his hands. But Abdul Saboor wrongly assumed that no one would try to kill him on his first day at work.
Shortly before reviewing his force last month he found six rocket-propelled grenades pointing at the podium where he was about to sit. Two days later, while he was touring a nearby district, someone planted a mine under his car. It blew the vehicle five metres into the air. Astonishingly, he was unhurt.
”The Americans told me afterwards, ‘You are a very lucky man’,” he said. ”Several of my bodyguards were wounded. I am not afraid of these things.”
The attacks on Saboor, a personal friend of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, were almost certainly the work of Taliban sympathisers.
The Taliban were supposed to have disappeared from Afghanistan 18 months ago, but in recent weeks they have begun a comeback with a series of primitive but deadly attacks on officials and the government’s military allies. Last week a suicide bomber blew up an explosives-filled taxi next to a bus full of German peacekeepers in Kabul, killing four of them. It was the deadliest attack on the international forces in Afghanistan so far.
In his response to the incident Karzai claimed that the Taliban had been ”completely defeated”. But the evidence suggests otherwise: 40 Taliban fighters were killed this month in a gun battle with government troops near Kandahar, and in the same area the Taliban recently killed a Red Cross worker and an Italian tourist.
Khost, a seven-hour drive from Kabul in east Afghanistan, is one of their main areas. Its new mosque was built with Arab money; Arab, Pakistani and Chechen volunteers used to hold dinners in the governor’s mansion.
Rumour has it that soon after America began bombing the Taliban in late 2001 Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, escaped from Khost into Pakistan, a two-hour drive away.
Since then many Taliban have found sanctuary in Pakistan, and slip back across the border to fire rockets at the military HQ at Sara Bagh just outside Khost, which houses 2 000 Italian and American soldiers.
Afghan officials say Arabs linked to al-Qaeda are behind the attacks, claiming that they pay local Afghans to plant mines and explosives.
Saboor alleged that the Pakistani inter-services intelligence agency (ISI), which supported the Taliban, was involved. But nobody quite knows who is responsible, although it is clear that disgruntled opponents of Karzai have begun a sporadic guerrilla campaign to overthrow him.
A former Taliban fighter, who did not want to be identified, denied to the Guardian that the Taliban were regrouping. His old Taliban commanders were lying low, he said. ”Some of them are up in the mountains chopping wood. Others are working in the market.”
He complained bitterly about Karzai’s government, which is dominated by Tajiks, and said it discriminated against the Pashtun majority. There was no security, and some women were even taking off their burkas. ”According to Islam women should cover up when they go to the bazaar,” he said, adding: ”I’m prepared to die for my beliefs.”
Ordinary Afghans too are becoming resentful of the 11 500 soldiers — mostly American — still in their country, hunting for Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects.
Last week American troops arrived by helicopter in Laka Tiga, a village on the potholed road between Khost and the town of Gardez, and the local warlord, Bacha Khan Zadran, sent out his son Abdul Wali and bodyguard Zangal Bacha to assist them. According to witnesses a soldier opened fire on Bacha as he sat in the back of his LandCruiser. He was killed instantly.
Soldiers also accidentally shot several Afghan civilians driving past in a mini-van, and a nine-year-old boy, Raz Mohammad, who had been sitting under a mulberry tree.
The Americans bundled Wali into a helicopter and flew off.
The US claims that Bacha was a ”guerrilla” and opened fire first; this is denied by villagers. Many of them also complain that American soldiers stole their money after breaking into their homes and ransacking boxes. ”They took 20 000 Pakistani rupees (£235) and my wife’s bracelet,” Islam Jan said.
UN officials have watched the behaviour of the US forces in Afghanistan with increasing dismay, and say that it is frequently reckless. ”This doesn’t help us at all,” one said. ”The people are basically pro-America. They want US forces to be here. But American soldiers are not very culturally sensitive. It’s hardly surprising that Afghans get angry when the Americans turn up and kick their doors in.”
Bacha Khan said: ”The Taliban are getting stronger and stronger. This is because US troops are misbehaving. I want my bodyguard’s killer brought to justice. I’d also like my son back.”
Saboor said he would do whatever it took to defeat the Taliban. The Russians had hanged three of his brothers in the 1980s, after their invasion of Afghanistan, he said, and he was not prepared to give up now. ”I love my country. I will carry on doing my duty, even if they put a mine under my car.” – Guardian Unlimited Â