AFGHANISTAN: Mounting violence leaves Afghans worried, angry

By Agence France Presse

Nearly a week after a suicide car bomb tore a hole into his family, Khan Mohammad is distraught and disillusioned with the government he voted for at Afghanistan’s first presidential election in 2005.

The retired colonel lost a daughter, three grandchildren — including twins aged three years — and a daughter-in-law in the blast at the Indian embassy in Kabul.

They were among more than 100 civilians killed in five days in Afghanistan including the bombing and two air strikes by US-led troops, according to Afghan officials.

“In the election I not only voted but I encouraged many Afghans to do so,” Mohammad told AFP at the weekend.

“I was thinking the new government will bring security, it will help reconstruct the country — but look what has happened. Security is so bad. You have suicide bombings everywhere. This time I was the victim.”

The suicide blast at the gates of the Indian embassy killed more than 40 people, including two senior Indian diplomats.

It was the deadliest of such attacks on the capital since the 2001 ouster of the extremist Taliban regime who claim many of the dozens of suicide bombings across Afghanistan, but rejected responsibility for this one.

Days earlier, two US-led coalition air strikes against militants in mountains near the border with Pakistan together killed 64 civilians, according to official investigations ordered by President Hamid Karzai.

The US-led coalition says it believes only militants were hit in Nuristan and Nangarhar provinces and is itself investigating.

The killings are alienating people from their government, said Mohammad Asif Shinwari from one of the enquiries that found 47 civilians — most of them women and children — were killed in strikes in Nangarhar on July 6.

“If the government keeps quiet about these civilian casualties like in the past, the situation will worsen and is bad for security,” said defence ministry official General Mohammad Amin who headed the other enquiry, that found 17 civilians were killed in July 4 strikes in Nuristan.

The international forces who are in Afghanistan to help the government fight insurgents say they do everything they can to avoid harming civilians.

But, “while we try to minimise or even eliminate civilian casualties, they (insurgents) are actually careless,” said Mark Laity from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

ISAF says about 350 civilians have been killed in rebel attacks this year. The number of civilians it has killed is in the “low double figures”, said Laity. There was no figure for the separate US-led coalition.

“We have conveyed our strong concerns to the international forces and we’ll be working with them to make sure incidents like this are avoided in the future,” Karzai’s spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told AFP.

But ex-army colonel Mohammad, mourning his daughter and grandchildren killed as they were applying for visas to visit London via New Delhi, said the government has failed its people.

“You don’t feel secure at the centre of the city. The countryside is of course worse,” he said.

The India travel agent across the road from the embassy and the small shops that used to make photographs and photocopies for visa applications are in ruins — mounds of glass and brick are swept up outside blown-out shells of buildings.

Metres (yards) away is the compound of the Ministry of Interior, which covers the police.

“The explosion occurred just under their nose,” said Feroz, who gives only one name, watching workers load what could be salvaged from his destroyed photocopy shop into a van.

“They should be ashamed, but they are not,” said the 28-year-old, who estimates he lost a business that was worth 16,000 dollars.

“I have no idea what to do now.” But he will not vote for Karzai at the next presidential election due next year, he said. “I would rather vote for a dog.”

Across the road, the owner of a badly damaged printing shop that had made business cards for the Indian embassy said many people he knows are thinking about quitting Afghanistan because of deteriorating security.

“No one wants to leave their country but if this continues, we have no choice,” said Sayed Zarif, 34, who

returned from 17 years in exile in Pakistan, after Karzai took over following the removal of the Taliban in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Sayed Ezatullah was washing the windows of his business when the suicide car bomber struck. “In a few seconds everything was rubble,” he said.

The street outside was littered with bodies and debris. He helped some people into ambulances.

“I could not sleep for two nights,” said 35-year-old Ezatullah. “I really don’t know what is going on, who we should blame.”