[Previous entry: "Kandahar Chronicles #21 - 01/10/2003"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Kandahar Chronicles #23 - 05/10/2003"]

10/06/2003: "Kandahar Chronicles #22 - 04/10/2003"

It’s really starting to hit the fan now. What was promising to be a fun day playing with our new generator dissipated in a crash of gunfire at the Zhare Dahst IDP camp. Around ten in the morning, armed men in a saracha, a typical yellow and white Toyota Corolla taxi, drove up to a marked NGO demining unit clearing a site for a possible future settlement. For security reasons I won’t write about the details of the attack in this blog, but they opened fire and luckily only one mine clearer was slightly injured. The vehicle sped off to the hills before the security forces arrived. It is sometimes too easy to forget our situation here and the deadly suddenness it can change.

This is not the first time by any means that the demining teams have been targeted. They are often staffed by ex-military and like we do, work in isolated, exposed areas. They are a “soft target” in a land where some factions see political gain from such attacks. Simplified, NGOs work in a war zone where Taliban forces, determined to protect their way of life they feel is under threat, fight Coalition forces determined to prevent another September 11th. It’s not so simple, of course. Individual commanders covet personal fiefdoms throughout the country and an American army stationed along the Northwest Frontier greatly enhances US global power politics.

Somehow, in all this we have to press on. The extent we do this will be determined after meetings with staff, police, government, camp elders and what we can learn from the bazaar, as well as discussions with the Head Office in Heart and a round of security meetings with other NGOs and the UN in Kandahar. Rumours of mass Taliban infiltration along the rugged border region with Pakistan are spreading. Once again, tension is rising among the aid community and security measures tightened. We must look at this development from all angles, not least of all from the point of view of the war-weary, displaced people we are here to help.