Afghan city lives without hope
Kandahar’s people have no faith in country’s security
KABUL // The attack in Kandahar that killed five Emiratis this month confirmed to its residents that the past 15 years of war have irreparably damaged the southern Afghan city. The bombing, by unknown assailants at the governor’s compound on January 10, killed or wounded more than 30 people. Among the wounded was the UAE Ambassador to the country, Juma Al Kaabi.
But since then the death toll has continued to rise, adding to the shroud of anger, fear and despair that hangs over a city where sudden acts of violence are now a routine part of life. Last Monday Hashim Khan Karzai, cousin of former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, died of wounds from the bombing. He was 58.
Hashim Khan’s brother, Haji Mohammed Qasim Karzai, reacted to the news in a way that is increasingly common among relatives of those killed in the war: he blamed the Afghan state for failing in its duty to maintain security.
“This is the sin of the government,” he said. “If a bomb can be set inside the governor’s office there is no hope for the safety of ordinary people.”
The January 10 attack occurred after a ceremony that day to lay a foundation stone for a UAE-funded orphanage, to be built in Kandahar on land donated by Hashim.
After the ceremony Afghan officials and the Emirati delegation went to the heavily guarded guesthouse of the provincial governor. A bomb hidden in the furniture exploded that evening.
Hashim was rushed to a military hospital at Kandahar airport but after appearing to be in a stable condition, he fell into a coma. Relatives chartered an aircraft to fly him to India for urgent treatment, but he died there on January 16. Much of the wider Karzai clan fled Afghanistan after the communist coup in 1978 and Hashim Khan had roots in Kandahar and the US. He also owned a house in Dubai.
The attack was yet another devastating blow to Kandahar, one of Afghanistan’s most strategically important and notoriously complex cities.
Before the US-led invasion in 2001, it was the spiritual home of the Taliban government and relatively secure thanks to the regime’s strict interpretation of Sharia. But the city has since become synonymous with the relentless violence that has swept across Afghanistan. “Kandahar has been destroyed,” said Mr Karzai. “All its well-known intellectuals and its educated and experienced men have been martyred.”
Insurgents, criminal net- works, warlords and corrupt government officials operate in and around the city, sometimes in tandem with one another. This often makes it impossible to know who is behind attacks such as the one on January 10.
The UAE is investigating the bombing and the Afghan government has claimed that the Taliban were responsible with help from “foreign hands”, usually a reference to Pakistan. The Taliban have denied responsibility.
There has been speculation in Afghanistan that the intended target was Kandahar’s chief of police, Brig Gen Abdul Raziq, a protege of US forces, who left the scene moments before the explosion. Human rights groups have accused Brig Raziq of murder, forced disappearances and torture. He is thought to be high on the Taliban’s hit list.
The Karzai family also has many enemies, having grown exceedingly wealthy and powerful since 2001. In July 2011, Ahmed Wali Karzai, half-brother of the former president, was murdered by his head of security after years of denying allegations about his involvement in the drugs trade. Among the dead in this month’s attack was Abdul Ali Shamsi, 39, deputy governor of Kandahar and formerly a pop- ular civil society activist. His brother, Abdul Bari, said he was uncertain about the identity of the perpetrators. On the same day as the Kandahar attack, dozens of people were killed and wounded in Taliban bombings near the parliament in Kabul. Violence continues to spread across northern Afghanistan, away from the militants’ traditional heartlands.
Much of the insecurity has been fuelled by widening rifts within the national unity government that succeeded Mr Karzai’s regime in 2014.
Formed as part of a deal, brokered by the US, that was designed to avert civil war, it has inadvertently pitted rival political factions against one another as officials compete for power.
Whoever carried out the attack in Kandahar, it seems certain that they knew they would make an already volatile situation even worse.
Haji Sayed Jan Khakrezwal, the head of Kandahar’s provincial council, was on his way to the governor’s guesthouse on January 10 when the bombing occurred. “I think it was done by a very high-level power, someone with more power than Afghans,” he said.