Padsha Khan then started his own little war. He sent rockets to the villages where his enemies were holed up and warfare broke out between the various factions. Several innocent people were killed when he tried to regain his lost power. In the end he had to give up, for the time being. Bob had been looking for him for ages, and there he is, sitting in the sand, surrounded by a bunch of bearded men.
Padsha gets up when he sees them. He greets Bob rather coldly but embraces Tajmir warmly and pushes him down beside him. ‘How are you my friend? Are you well?’
They had often met during Operation Anaconda, America’s major al-Qaida offensive. Tajmir had interpreted, that was all.
Padsha Khan is used to ruling the region as though it were his own backyard, together with his three brothers. Only six weeks ago he allowed rockets to rain down over the town of Gardes. Now it is Khost’s turn. A new Governor has been appointed, a sociologist who has lived for the last decade in Australia. He has gone to ground, for fear of Padsha Khan and his men.
‘My men are prepared,’ Padsha Khan tells Tajmir, who translates while Bob scribbles in his notebook. ‘We are just now discussing what to do,’ he continues and looks at his men. ‘Do we take him or do we wait?’ Padsha Khan goes on. ‘Are you headed for Khost? Then you must tell my brother to get rid of the new Governor quick as a flash. Tell him to pack up and bugger off to Karzai!’
Padsha Khan uses his hands to mime packing up and sending away. The men look at him, then at Tajmir and then at blond Bob who is frantically noting everything down.
‘Listen,’ says Padsha Khan. There is no doubt who he thinks is the legitimate lord of the three provinces, the provinces the Americans are watching like hawks. The warlord uses Tajmir’s leg to illustrate what he means, drawing maps, roads and frontiers on his thigh. Tajmir receives a slap on the thigh for every utterance; he translates automatically. The largest ant he has ever seen is crawling over his foot.
‘Karzai is threatening to send in the army next week. What will you do about that?’ asks Bob.
‘What army? Karzai doesn’t have an army. He has a few hundred bodyguards who are being trained by the British. No one can beat me on my territory,’ says Padsha Khan, looking at his men. They wear worn-out sandals and ragged clothes, and the only polished and shining bit about them is their weapons. Some of the handles are covered in colourful rows of pearls, others have painstakingly embroidered borders. Several of the young soldiers have decorated their Kalashnikovs with stickers. One pink sticker bears the words ‘kiss me’.
Many of these men fought on the side of the Taliban only a year ago. ‘No one can own us, they can only hire us,’ the Afghans say about themselves and their rapid change from side to side in war. Today they belong to Padsha Khan; tomorrow the Americans might hire them. The most important thing to them now is to fight whomever Padsha Khan considers to be his enemy. The Americans’ hunt for al-Qaida will have to wait.
‘He’s mad,’ says Tajmir when they are back in the car. ‘People like him are responsible for the fact that there is never peace in Afghanistan. To him power is more important than peace. He’s mad enough to jeopardise the lives of thousands just so he can be in charge. I can’t imagine why the Americans want to co-operate with a man like that,’ he says.
‘If they were to work only with people whose hands are clean they would not have found many in this province,’ says Bob. ‘They have no choice.’
‘But now they no longer care about hunting the Taliban for the Americans, now their weapons are aimed at each other,’ Tajmir protests.
‘Hm,’ Bob mumbles. ‘I wonder if there will be any serious fighting,’ he says, more to himself than to Tajmir.
Tajmir and Bob disagree fundamentally about what constitutes a successful trip. Bob wants action, the more the better. Tajmir wants to return home, as quickly as possible. In a few days he and Khadija celebrate their second wedding anniversary and he hopes to be home for that. He wants to surprise her with a wonderful present. Bob wants violent action in print; like a few weeks ago when he and Tajmir were nearly killed by a grenade. It didn’t hit them, but got the car behind them. Or the time they had to take refuge in the dark because they were mistaken for the enemy on their way into Gardez and the bullets whizzed past them. Even though he is dead scared, those things make Bob feel he is doing an important job, while Tajmir curses ever having changed his. The only plus about these trips is the extra danger money; Feroza knows nothing about that, so he keeps that money for himself.
To Tajmir and the majority of Kabul’s inhabitants, this part of Afghanistan is the one they identify with least. These areas are considered wild and violent. People live here who do not conform to national authority. Padsha Khan and his brother can be in charge of whole regions. It has always been like this. The law of the jungle.
They pass barren desert landscapes. Here and there they spot nomads and camels, which slowly and proudly sway their way across the sand dunes. In a few places the nomads have erected their large, sand-coloured tents. Women in billowing, colourful skirts walk between the tents. The women of the Kuchi tribe are looked upon as the most liberated in Afghanistan. As long as they kept away from the towns, not even the Taliban forced them to wear the burka. But these nomadic tribes have also suffered enormously in the past years. Owing to the war and the mines they have had to alter their centuries-old routes, and they now move about on much restricted territories. The drought of the last years has resulted in the death of much of their livestock, their goats and camels.
The landscape is increasingly empty; below them desert, above them mountain, all in a variation of brown. Up on the mountainside there are black zigzagging patterns, which turn out to be sheep, cheek by jowl, seeking food on the mountain ledges.
They approach Khost. Tajmir hates this town. Here the Taliban leader Mullah Omar found his most loyal supporters. Khost and the surrounding area hardly noticed that the country had been taken over by the Taliban. To them there was little change. The women had never gone out to work or the girls to school. The burka had been worn for as long as they could remember, not prescribed by the authorities, but by the families.
Khost is a town without women, at least on the surface. Whilst in Kabul during the first spring following the fall of the Taliban women were starting to throw off the burka, and one could, from time to time, see women in restaurants, in Khost women are rarely seen, not even hidden behind the burka. They lead a life closed in behind the backyard, they never go out, shop, or even visit. The law of purdah reigns, the total segregation of men and women.
Tajmir and Bob make their way to Padsha Khan’s younger brother, Kamal Khan. He has occupied the Governor’s residence, while the newly appointed Governor has placed himself under house arrest with the chief constable. The Governor’s flower garden is flush with men loyal to the Khan clan. Soldiers of every age, from slender young boys to grey-haired men, sit, lie or walk around. The atmosphere is tense and rather exhausting.
‘Kamal Khan?’ Tajmir asks.
Two soldiers show them up to the commander, who is surrounded by men. He agrees to the interview and they sit down. A small boy arrives with tea.
‘We are ready for battle. Until the spurious Governor leaves Khost and my brother is reinstated there will be no peace,’ says the young man. The men nod. One man nods vigorously, he is the second in command under Kamal Khan. He sits on the floor, legs crossed, drinks tea and listens. All the time he is fondling another soldier. They are closely entwined and their entangled fingers lie in the lap of one of them. Many of the soldiers send Tajmir and Bob fawning looks.
In parts of Afghanistan, especially in the southeastern part of the country, homosexuality is widespread and tacitly accepted. Many commanders have young lovers and one often sees old men followed by a bunch of young boys. The boys adorn themselves with flowers in their hair, behind the ear or in a buttonhole. This behaviour is often explained by the strict purdah practised in the southern and eastern parts of the country. I
t is not rare to see a gaggle of mincing, swaying boys. They paint thick kohl lines round their eyes and their movements remind one of transvestites in the West. They stare, they flirt and they wiggle their hips and shoulders.
The commanders do not live as homosexuals only; the majority of them have wives and a large brood of children. But they are rarely at home and life is lived amongst men. Often major jealous dramas develop around the young men; many blood feuds have been fought over a young lover who divided his favours between two men. On one occasion two commanders launched a tank battle in the bazaar in a feud over a young lover. The result was several dozen killed.
Kamal Khan, a good-looking man in his twenties, maintains self-confidently that it is the Khan clan’s right to rule the province.
‘The people are on our side. We’ll fight to the last man. It’s not that we desire power,’ Kamal Khan says disarmingly. ‘It’s the people, the people, who want us. And they deserve us. We’re only following their wishes.’
Two long-legged spiders crawl up the wall behind him. Kamal Khan takes a little bag out of his waistcoat. In it are some tablets, which he swallows. ‘I’m not well,’ he says with eyes begging for sympathy.
These are the men who oppose Hamid Karzai. These are the men who continue to rule according to the law of the warlords, and who refuse to be dictated to from Kabul. If civilian life is lost, it matters little. It is power that matters, and power means two things: honour - that the Khan tribe maintains power in the province; and money - control of the flourishing traffic in smuggled goods and income from customs duty on items that are legally imported.
The reason why the American magazine is so interested in the local Khost conflict is not primarily because Karzai threatens to set the army on the warlords. That will probably not happen, because as Padsha Khan said: ‘If he sends in the army people will be killed and he will get the blame.’
No, the magazine is interested because of the American forces in the region, the secret American Special Forces who are impossible to get close to, the secret agents crawling around in the mountains hunting for al-Qaida. Bob’s magazine wants an article, an exclusive article, on ‘The hunt for al-Qaida’. Most of all the young reporter wants to find Osama bin Laden. Or at least Mullah Omar. And cover the hunt. The Americans hedge their bets and work with both sides in the local conflict. The Americans give both sides money, both sides accompany them on missions, both sides are given weapons, communications equipment, intelligence equipment. They have good contacts on both sides; on both sides are former Taliban supporters.
The Khan brothers’ arch-enemy is called Mustafa. He is the Khost chief constable. Mustafa co-operates with Karzai and the Americans. When one of Mustafa’s men killed four Khan clan men during a shoot-out recently, he had to barricade himself in the police station for several days. The first four to leave the station would be killed, the Khans warned. When they ran out of food and water, they agreed to negotiate. They negotiated a postponement. That means little; four of Mustafa’s men have a death sentence hanging over them, which can be implemented at any time. Blood is revenged with blood and the threat alone, before the killings have been carried out, is torture.
After Kamal Khan and younger brother Wasir Khan have described Mustafa as a criminal who kills women and children and who must be eliminated, Tajmir and Bob take their leave and are followed to the gate by two young boys who look like beautiful South Sea Island girls. They wear big, yellow flowers in their wavy hair, tight-fitting belts round their waists and they stare intensely at Tajmir and Bob. They don’t know which of the two to look at, slender blond Bob or powerful Tajmir with the creamy face.
‘Look out for Mustafa’s men,’ they say. ‘You can’t trust them; they’ll betray you as soon as you turn your back. And don’t go out after dark, they’ll rob you!’
The two travellers make straight for the enemy. The police station is a few blocks away from the occupied Governor’s residence and doubles up as a prison. The police station is a fortress. The walls are several metres thick. Mustafa’s men open up the heavy iron gates, and they enter a backyard; there too the beautiful scent of flowers greets them, but from flowering trees and bushes, not from the men. Mustafa’s soldiers are easy to tell apart from the Khans’. They wear dark-brown uniforms, small square caps and heavy boots. Many of them wear a scarf covering their nose and mouth and dark glasses. Not being able to see them makes them look more threatening.
Tajmir and Bob are led up narrow stairs and passages in the fortress. Mustafa sits in a room in the innermost part of the building. Like his enemy Kamal Khan, men and weapons surround him. The weapons are the same, the beards the same, the looks the same. The picture of Mecca on the wall is the same. The only difference is that the chief constable sits on a chair behind a table, not on the floor. In addition there are no flower-power young men there. The only flowers are a bunch of plastic daffodils on the chief’s table, daffodils in fluorescent yellow, red and green. Beside the vase lies the Koran wrapped in a green cloth, and a miniature Afghan flag flies from a plinth.
‘We have Karzai on our side and we will fight,’ says Mustafa. ‘The Khans have ravaged this region long enough, now we will put an end to the barbarism!’ Round him the men nod agreement.
Tajmir translates and translates. The same threats, the same words. Why Mustafa is better than Padsha Khan, how Mustafa will make peace. He is really outlining the reason for there never being real peace in Afghanistan.
Mustafa has joined the Americans in many reconnaissance sorties. He recalls how they watched over a house which they were sure contained bin Laden and Mullah Omar. But they never found anything. The American reconnaissance work continues but they are hedged around by a lot of secretiveness, and Bob and Tajmir are not enlightened further. Bob asks if they can join them one night. Mustafa laughs. ‘No, that’s top secret, that’s how the Americans want it. It won’t help how much you beg, young man,’ he says.
‘Don’t go out after dusk,’ Mustafa commands them strictly when they leave. ‘Khan’s men will get you.’
Thoroughly warned by both sides, they visit the local kebab house, a large room where cushions have been laid out on long benches. Tajmir orders pilau and kebab, Bob asks for boiled eggs and bread. He is frightened of parasites and germs. They eat hastily and hurry back to the hotel before dusk falls. In this town anything can happen and one is well advised to take precautions.
A heavy grille in front of the gate to the town’s only hotel is opened and locked behind them. They look out on Khost, a town where shops are closed, policemen are masked and the population sympathise with al-Qaida. A scowling look at Bob from a passer-by is enough to make Tajmir feel unwell. In this region there is a bounty on Americans. Fifty thousand dollars will be paid to anyone who kills an American.
They go up on to the roof to erect Bob’s satellite telephone. A helicopter flies overhead. Bob tries to guess where it is heading for. A dozen of the hotel’s soldiers have gathered around them; they look in amazement at the wire-less phone Bob talks into.
‘Is he talking to America?’ asks a long, thin rake, wearing a turban, tunic and sandals. He looks like the leader. Tajmir nods. The soldiers keep on watching Bob. Tajmir makes small talk with them; they are only interested in the phone and how it works. They have hardly seen a telephone before. One of them exclaims in a sad voice: ‘Do you know what is our problem? We know everything about our weapons, but we know nothing about how to use a telephone.’
After the conversation with America, Bob and Tajmir descend. The soldiers follow.
‘Are these the ones who will kill us once we have turned our backs?’ Bob whispers.
The soldiers are each carrying a Kalashnikov. Some of them have fastened long bayonets to the rifles. Tajmir and Bob sit down on a sofa in the lobby. An extraordinary picture hangs above their heads. It is a large framed poster of New York with both the twin towers from the World Trade Center still standing. But it is not New York’s real skyline; behind t
he buildings high mountains tower. In the foreground a large, green park with red flowers has been glued on. New York looks like a small town made of wooden blocks, under an enormous mountain range.
The picture looks as though it has been hanging there for ages: it is discoloured and slightly wavy. It must have been hanging there long before anyone realised that exactly this image would be associated in such a grotesque way with Afghanistan and the dusty town of Khost, and would deliver to the country more of what it did not need: more bombs.
‘Do you know which town that is?’ asks Bob.
The soldiers shake their heads. They have seen hardly anything but one- and two-storey mud huts and it must be difficult for them to understand that the picture depicts a real town.
‘That is New York,’ says Bob. ‘America. Those two buildings are the ones Osama bin Laden’s men flew the planes into.’
The soldiers leap up. They’ve heard about those two buildings. They point and gesticulate. That’s what they looked like! To think they had passed the picture every day without realising it!
Bob has one of his magazines with him and shows them a picture of a man every American recognises.
‘Do you know who that is?’ he asks. They shake their heads.
‘That is Osama bin Laden.’
The soldiers open their eyes wide and tear the magazine out of his hands. They crowd around it. Everyone wants to see.