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09/15/2003: "Kandahar Chronicles #9 - 11/09/2003"

The second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks came and went in Kandahar without incident. People went to work, the nephew of my purchaser got married, there were no public rallies of support for Al Queda or moments of silence for the victims of that infamous day. In fact, the guys from the office thought it strange that westerners attached such importance to dates. My logistic assistant told me that when an Afghan man is wronged he would never forget the incident but might forget the month it happened. That wasn’t the case when the news first broke two years ago. At first the feeling was the same as anywhere, shock and disbelief. Then however came a different feeling, a sense of grim foreboding. They knew that the American fleet would soon sail seeking retribution, and Kandahar, as the traditional support base for the Taliban, would be at the centre of the storm.

They told me fear swept through the city, and despite the bravado of the Taliban, people left in droves to relatives in the country. The war itself is history, men armed with Kalashnikovs in Toyota pickups blasting away at a combination of overwhelming American firepower and tactics as well as the cavalry squadrons of the Northern warlords. Kandahar city was targeted with precision-guided weapons. Shrapnel scarred buildings stand beside vacant lots or building sites that were once military installations of the old regime. Shredded oil tankers lie rusting beside the roads out of town, victims of American and earlier Mujahadeen attacks. 9/11 was felt deeply by the residents of Kandahar who have known too much war since the Russian invasion in 1979. My log assistant said although they don’t mark September 11th as a day of remembrance, everyone on the staff have stories of loss over the last twenty-four years, and that is what they share that with the victims in the US.