Afghan Scene Magazine April/May 2011

SCENE

perspective • insight • people • reviews • pics • life

AFGHAN

Fear and loathing in the Hindu KushThe man who saved Afghanistan’s gold

Murad Khane photo essay

Once wereBuddhas

a Bamian special

ISSUE 81-82 - April-May 2011

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Afghan Scene April -May 2011

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7 Introduction

10 How did expat aid workers react to bin Laden’s death?Cartoons from Manu

14 Captive: Fear and loathing in the Hindu KushIn an exclusive extract from his book Captive, Jere Van Dyk plunges back into paranoia he felt trying to insurgent leaders across the border with Pakistan

32 Ski BamianWas 2011 Afghanistan’s first true ski season? Jerome Starkey reports

40 Could the Bhuddas of Bamian have been saved?Afghanistan veteran Michael Semple argues that it was a lack of determination to save the bhuddas, as much as anything else, that led to their destructiont

48 Flying the Bamian BhuddasDuncan Pendry recounts what in all likelihood was the first free flight in sight of the Bhudda niches

57 One Servicewoman’s break-up letter to Afghanistan

58 Be Scene

60 Murad Khane photo essayPhotographer Laura Lean explores this newly restored quarter of Kabul’s old city

68 Afghan Essentials All you need to know about where to go in Kabul

70 Defying the Taliban to preserve Afghanistan’s treasuresBen Farmer meets Ameruddin Askarzai

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Insurance corp AFG

Publisher: Afghan Scene Ltd, Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul, AfghanistanManager & Editor: Afghan Scene Ltd, Kabul, AfghanistanDesign: Kaboora ProductionAdvertising: [email protected]: Emirates Printing Press, DubaiContact: [email protected] / www.afghanscene.comAfghan Scene welcomes the contribution of articles and / or pictures from its readers. Editorial rights reserved. Cover photo: Natalie Puri

Afghan Scene April-May 2011IntroductionContents

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AFGHAN

ISSUE 81-82 - April-May 2011




Afghan Scene April -May 2011Introduction

The curious incident of the dogs and the Embassy

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All is not well at the US Embassy. Construction work on a luxury hotel opposite has been set back by a pack of stray dogs refusing to

vacate the site, sources tell Afghan Scene. Amid mounting debate over how to deal with the canine pests, anti-doggers in the vicinity have reportedly poisoned three of the hounds. Time is running out for the pro-dog lobby, who, as Afghan Scene was going to press, had just days to find a shelter for their four-legged friends before construction resumed.

Compounding matters, cats have got in on the action. The editors received this missive from one staff member at the Embassy: “In one of your publications I saw an NGO supporting the pets. I’m looking for their contact info to talk to them about a project inside the embassy. We have cats that needs to be taken out from the compound. Can you

please pass my email/contact info to them or ask them to contact me to talk about the project?”

“This is obviously referring to the cat part of the dog and cat committee,” one knowledgeable commentator said.

This edition has precisely nothing to do with dogs or cats. What there is is an exclusive extract from Jere Van Dyk’s descent into fear, loathing and extreme paranoia before and during his kidnap by the Taliban; a feature on Afghanistan’s first indigenous ski-guides, who have been finding their feet on the virgin slopes of the Koh-e-Baba range in Bamian; and satirical cartoons by the superb Manu.�

[email protected]





Ben Farmer has been based in Kabul as the Telegraph’s Afghanistancorrespondent since 2008. He began his career with false starts as an

adman and business consultant, before becoming a hack. When ordered toKabul he was promised he could return to a good job when bin Laden was

found. Seems he was lied to.

Scene Team

ContributorsAfghan Scene Magazine is proud to showcase work from the best

photographers in Afghanistan

Almost all of the photographs and cartoons featured in Afghan Scene are available for sale direct from the artists. Most of them are available for commissions, here and

elsewhere. If you would like to contribute to Afghan Scene, or if you can’t get hold of a contributor, please contact [email protected].

Manu. Cartoonist, UN employee critic of B.U.LS.H.I.T. Task Forces, PhD student at UC Berkeley. Originally from Brittany, France, living in Brooklyn, NY. I contribute cartoons

to stuffexpataidworkerslike.com, HeloMagazine.org, and Rue89, a French news website where I have a guest blog. My personal website is www.manucartoons.com

and I am also on Facebook and, since very recently, on Twitter.

Jere Van Dyk is a journalist and author. He is currently a consultant on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and al-Qaeda for CBS News. In 2008, Van Dyk was captured and imprisoned

by the Taliban in the no-man’s-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He tells the story of his 45-day ordeal in his book, Captive (2010).

Former ASM editor Jerome Starkey is The Times correspondent in Afghanistan. He is currently renovating a 1969 VW Beetle called Herb-i-Islami.

For more information visit jeromestarkey.com

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Afghan Scene April -May 2011Book scene

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Book scene

In an exclusive extract from his book ‘Captive’ Jere van Dyk recalls being captured by the Taliban

Fear and loathing in the Hindu Kush

the spring. I have interviewed a great number of people: tribal leaders, local people, politicians, and mullahs. I have an interview scheduled with President Hamid Karzai on the 10th.

I live in Kabul, but when I am away I live like a Pashtun. I have sneaked four times into the tribal zones of Pakistan, our goal. I have been deep into Mohmand Agency, one of the zones. I went in with very religious drug traffickers. We sneaked past the border post where, a week before, the Taliban killed four policemen.

I have crossed with tribal leaders into Kurram Agency, also in the tribal zones.

Thursday, January 3

Dear Paul,

Happy New Year. I want to give you an update on the book and to let you know where I am on it at the moment. I am writing a letter because I don’t trust e-mails. I am not completely paranoid, but close to it.

I began working on the book at the end of August. I have traveled through most, but not all, parts of eastern Afghanistan along the border. I have a few important places yet to go. I will go to them this winter or later in

Afghan Scene April -May 2011www.afghanscene.comwww.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene April -May 2011

Afghan Scene April -May 2011Afghan Scene April -May 2011

An insurgent fighter | Jere Van Dyk





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me. My go- between is going up into the mountains to talk to him now.I had one of my biggest scares thus far on New Year’s Eve. It is still not over. I sneaked across the border from Kunar, with two guides, and went into Chitral, in the tribal areas. It took a month to arrange this. There I met with a Taliban commander. In every case, thus far, with the Taliban, I have taken a camera and taken their pictures. I take other pictures also.

After I finished my interview—and this man, unlike other Taliban I have been with, was not even remotely friendly— my guides and I took a different route, hiding behind rocks, evading a Pakistani military truck, and sneaked back across the border to Afghanistan. This all happened at night. Most of my trips are at night.

It was a two-part package deal. I was to meet at 3 a.m. the next morning with a Pakistani Military Intelligence officer who would come across the border to meet with me. I wanted confirmation from him of all that I am learning about the military’s involvement with al- Qaeda and the Taliban. The tribal chief, who arranged the Taliban meeting, would bring him. He promised that the officer would answer all my questions, including those about Osama bin Laden. Everything went terribly wrong. I insisted that we meet at dawn, so I could take video of our meeting. I did this for a few reasons. The camera has the recording. I knew I would need proof of such a meeting. The tribal chief decided, because

I have twice been into Chitral, in the north, where Gulbadeen Hekmatyar lives, and where many feel Osama bin Laden may be hiding. I know our goal is to cover the tribal zones, not just eastern Afghanistan. I have been with the Taliban three times. Once in the mountains, about a six-hour hike south from Tora Bora. The Taliban there came from North Waziristan. They invited me to come with them, on another trip, to their training camps. We shall see. The day after I left, the government came and arrested some tribal people. I don’t know if someone recognized me, or learned that a foreigner was there.

Before that I met with a Taliban commander in Kunar Province in the north of Afghanistan, along the border. This meeting represents the first time any journalist has been with the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, so I am told. A member of al- Qaeda, along with other Taliban, was watching when I interviewed the Taliban commander in Kunar.

The next day the U.S. Army came and attacked them, from the air and on the ground. They did so because the Taliban attacked the army base that night. I was not with them when they attacked the base. I won’t do that.

The Taliban leader has since called my translator, and my go-between, a number of times. He wants to take me to their training camps. I haven’t agreed to go yet because I am not sure he doesn’t want to kidnap

A tough nineteen-year-old Afghan, the youngest brother of the tribal chief, and who guided me down a mountain in Chitral and over a stream and back to Afghanistan, and who slept in a room with us to protect us, drove me and my guide fast on a rough track out of the area.

Afghans at a U.S. Army check post stopped us and this time I was discovered, and they took me to the army fire base. The sergeant was as nice as could be, even said he recognized my name and commented on my long experience in Afghanistan, and said he and others had been reading some things I had written. He asked if I wanted anything to eat or to see his commander. All I wanted to do was get out of there, which I did. I was afraid they would find out what had happened. We rushed on. When we were near a paved road and relative safety, four hours later, I asked the driver to stop. I went down to the Kunar River and washed my face. I came back to see the young Afghan crying softly. He finally broke down. His two brothers were in prison, one being held by Afghan intelligence, the other by the Pakistanis. The full weight of everything hit me. I stood there filled with sadness and, yes, shame. I was responsible for this trip. I demanded certain things and they followed my instructions. They did everything for me. In return I was going to pay them some money.

My guide is in touch with one of the men who took us to Chitral, part of the tribal

of this, to move us to a different location. At 4:00 a.m., the Talibancommander, and eight of his men, came to where we were originally, to capture or kill us.

The tribal chief was gone to meet with the MI man. My guide and I, and the chief’s younger brother, were at another, secret location. I didn’t sleep that night. There was machine-gun fire coming from near the U.S. Army base a few miles away. There were helicopters coming and going.

At dawn the next morning, on the way to meet us, the tribal chief and the army man were captured by Afghan intelligence. His men had to get me out of there. We sneaked down the mountain and found another truck. The Afghans risked everything to get me far away from there. Above all a Pashtun will protect to the death a guest. It is part of Pashtunwali, their ancient tribal code, which often takes precedence over Islam. That is why Mullah Omar refused to give up Osama bin Laden. He destroyed his government, his country, and much else all to protect Osama bin Laden. So it was with the men and me.

The tribal chief had given one of his younger brothers to the Pakistanis as a guarantee that he would bring the army man back. He promised the MI officer that if anything happened he would take care of his family for life. The area where we operated is filled with al- Qaeda and the Taliban. Al- Qaeda had kidnapped a man who worked at the U.S. Army base a week or so before and beheaded him.

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The trip will take three weeks to a month, I am told, through many parts of the tribal areas. I am going to go to all the places that you and I discussed. I will go with our enemies. I will leave after my interview with Karzai. A blue suit one day and Afghan clothes the next. I sent my men back to double- check with theothers yesterday. After what happened on New Year’s Eve (I forgot that was the date) in Chitral, I am scared.

Everything I am doing costs money. I have about twelve people on my payroll at different times. I use different men for different tribal areas. A man must belong to the area, and to the right tribe, to do anything. The Pakistanis are using the Taliban, I believe, to try to destroy the tribal structure. They are deeply involved in backing the Taliban. They are, I believe, using U.S. taxpayer money to kill U.S. soldiers. The Taliban get money for what they do. A suicide bomber gets the most, although it goes to his family. I stay away from journalists here, as much as possible, although I know many people here, because I don’t want to talk. I can’t tell people what I am doing. I don’t really trust anybody. It is too dangerous. By the way, all the Taliban in the north thought I was a journalist from Nepal. If they found out I was American they would kill me, or so my guides said. I said I didn’t look Nepali, but my guides said the Taliban

chief’s family. I learned last night that the Taliban have now kidnapped the MI officer. I don’t know what they are going to do with him. If anything happens to him, the Pakistanis may well execute the tribal chief’s brother. The local Afghan intelligence people are keeping this out of the media. Kabul doesn’t even know.

The leader of my group is the tribal chief along the border. He was released two days ago by Afghan intelligence. I learned yesterday that a Pakistani MI officer, a friend of the officer with whom I was to meet, had secretly alerted Afghan intelligence that his fellow officer was coming over. It gets even more complicated.

It is a very murky world here, a place of ancient tribal ties, betrayal, warfare, double-crossing, and where a man’s honor and tribal codes count for everything. The Afghans I was with are doing everything to keep my name out of it. They promised they would protect me. They have kept their word. This trip is not a game.

I do not have the full answers yet. I am still not out of this. I have to go back to Kunar. I have not yet told you the full story. I am too sick to my stomach. I met with my guide this morning. We do not know what is going to happen to the MI man, and the young man in prison in Pakistan. We worry.

My guide and Taliban go- between are now planning a long trip. It is almost set. I sent trusted men to talk to people to arrange it.





The author with Taliban fighters shortly before his kidnapping | Jere Van Dyk





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official visa for Pakistan, but right now it doesn’t matter. I will continue to cross the mountains. Our goal is to understand what is going on, on both sides of the border, which is the center of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the “War on Terror.”

There is not a tribal chief along the border who believes one word that Musharraf utters. Journalists have written that Afghans and Pakistanis call him “Busharraf,” a combination of “Bush” and “Musharraf,” meaning that they are both the same, outsiders fighting the Pashtuns, but what they are really saying is “Besharraf,” meaning, in Pashto, “a man of no dignity.” It is a play on words and, to them, the truth. They all believe that Bush and Musharraf are deceiving the world. One malik (tribal leader) called it “a drama.” Others agree. I don’t have the answers yet. As one malik in Pakistan said, “I have money, men, weapons, and ammunition, but I don’t have the ability to make a suicide jacket.”

Strange, is it not, that as Pakistan burns, Musharraf can throw lawyers in jail, and judges and politicians, and yet the government has yet to find anyone responsible for one single suicide attack, as they rage across the tribal zones, in Pakistan proper, and here in Kabul.

I know you are concerned about Osama bin Laden. He and al-Qaeda are a big part of this story. I bring him up, whenever I can, in interviews.

wouldn’t know. They are that isolated from the world. I can’t believe that the al- Qaeda fighter, who watched me interview his commander in American English, thought I was Nepali. I have been talking with the U.S. Army about going on an embed along the border, but I have postponed that for now. I was at a dinner the other night, with the deputy commander of ISAF, a three-star British general, who invited me to go with him on a trip whenever I wanted. Maybe, but only after I finish my own work on the ground. I am staying away from the CIA. I do not trust the CIA. I can’t afford to let it know what I am doing. I have heard they are along the border. I don’t know exactly what is going on between the CIA and the ISI, the main Pakistani intelligence agency, although I have heard that MI is more ruthless. Who knows? I had hoped the Pakistani military intelligence man would have enlightened me about a number of things, but now he is in prison, somewhere, if he is still alive, in part because of me. I, like every Afghan I have met, am not sure what U.S. goals are here. I will see about talking to U.S. officials after I have completed my work on the ground. I am talking to Karzai now because he will see me, and because I want to use that as leverage with the Pakistanis, including President Pervez Musharraf.

I have a great deal to do, a great number of places to go. I will hopefully still get an

The Maulavi tried to turn on the camera. He gave it to Daoud, who tried and gave it back to him. The Maulavi came forward and gave me the camera. “How do I turn this on?” he asked. His face was angry. I fumbled with it and reluctantly, nervously turned the camera on. I am helping you film my own execution, I said to myself. I hung my head in fear, disbelief, and utter despair. The Maulavi gave the camera to Daoud. He said he didn’t know how to use it.

Two months before, I had tried to show him how to use the camera. He flicked his wrist. “That camera is no good,” he had said. “It’s a cheap one.” I was angry at his arrogance. Daoud fumbled now with the same camera. He had to learn now, or maybe they would kill him, too.

The Maulavi started to film me. I didn’t know what to do. He motioned for the men behind me to come closer. I turned to my right and saw a Kalashnikov, with its barrel cut at an angle, a few inches from my head. The man moved closer. I felt the barrel against my temple. The Maulavi gave the camera to Daoud and told him to film me. He held the camera against his eye. I stared at it for a second, and then I looked down. The Maulavi motioned, and a man behind me took my pakool off and threw it on the cot next to me. I felt more naked. It would make it easier for him to cut off my head, or was it so they could see me better in the video, or both? I had to be strong. I put my head down. I didn’t want to die a coward. I couldn’t keep my head up. I put my hand on

I know the manuscript is due in August. I went to see the Pakistanis again last week about a visa. Still nothing. Everyone says they don’t trust me. I don’t know. I’ll get the information one way or another, even if I have to go to Peshawar and Islamabad disguised as an Afghan.

I will continue to stay in touch.

Best wishes, Jere

Tuesday, February 19

A few minutes passed, and the Maulavi walked back in. He was holding my video camera. Behind him came two riflemen wearing fatigue jackets, black turbans, ammunition vests filled with clips of bullets, and sunglasses. They stood behind me. Another gunman, wearing a white jamay and with a piece of straw in his mouth, stood on the side, his face dark and cocky, looking at me.

The Maulavi was silent. He stood five feet away. He motioned to the gunmen to stand closer. They came forward. I could see their rifle barrels out of the corner of my eyes. This was it. It had all been a show. He had made his decision. He was going to kill me now. Me, of all people. I couldn’t believe it. The irony of it all. They were going to kill me. I sat there, a pit in my stomach, as everyone stared at me. They would watch me die.







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another man, on orders from the Maulavi, will empty his clip of bullets into me.

I turned around. I was shaking inside. Daoud kept filming. The room was silent. I stared ahead. I kept staring, waiting to die. It will be any second now. Be strong. Be strong. The Maulavi took the camera from Daoud. He stopped it and walked out. The men behind me, and others, with their rifles, walked out with him. Someone said in English, “No problem.” Daoud fell forward on the floor, his face down, shaking.

I looked down, staring at nothing. They weren’t going to kill me to night. Or were they? I sat there, in my sweater, my patoo down by my waist, lying on the floor. I put my head in my hand. I could feel the lights all around me and everyone staring at me. I am dead, I said to myself again. The United States did not negotiate. What kind of life did I lead? Did I achieve my potential? Was this it? I was sixty-two years old. That is not young to most people, but I felt young. I didn’t want to die, not now, not here in the mountains of Pakistan. It wasn’t possible. Nim spin gier— half gray beard. I didn’t want to die.

The door opened. The Maulavi and his men returned. Oh no. They are going to do it all over again. This is the real thing. Oh no. They lined up behind me again, and the room was silent. Daoud filmed me. The Maulavi, like a director, told the men behind me to come closer. They did. He didn’t like what they did the first time. That was the rehearsal.

my forehead, my elbow on my knee, and kept looking down. I am going to die now, I said to myself. I felt my heart pounding. I was looking down to protect my throat. I kept looking down. I was trembling inside. I had to die with dignity. I had to be strong for my father, my brother, and my sister, and for my nephews and nieces. I said their names silently. I told myself to sit up straight and to hold my head up. It was so hard. I kept trying and trying. It was like lifting lead. I forced myself and finally held my head up. My neck was exposed, but I was strong. I was not a coward. I knew my eyes showed fear. I looked straight into the camera. I’m about to die. Oh, God. I thought of men standing before firing squads. I thought of Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl. It takes courage to look your killers in the eye. I had to be strong. I thought of my family, especially my father, watching me on television. Be strong . . . be strong. I am about to die.

I heard a rustle behind me. Oh my God, they are going to pull out a knife and cut off my head right now. I looked around and saw the man right behind me put his hand in his jacket as I had seen men do in videos on television. He is pulling out the knife. I knew how long it would be. I had once seen a man use it to cut the throat of a sheep and a water buffalo. I turned and raised my hand to protect myself. He is going to come down on me and try to cut my throat, and I am going to fight him, holding his wrists. The other man will grab my arms, and as we struggle the first man will cut my throat, or



Fighter with RPG | Jere Van Dyk





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“Thank you,” I said. I took a deep breath. I felt good. There was hope. He wasn’t going to kill me. Not now, or was he? I didn’t know anything. I was exhausted. I chose to believe him. Warmth spread through me. I looked at him cautiously and then down.

“We are the political committee,” he said. “You still have to meet with the military commission. They will decide what to do with you.”

I looked at him and at the floor. Military commission? What was that? All the joy I had allowed myself to feel disappeared. All this didn’t matter. I now had to face a military commission. I imagined older men, in their forties or fifties, with long black beards and hard, stern faces, men hardened by war and hatred of America. I would have to do this all over again. They would sit there, in judgment. I would plead my case. They would kill me. Maybe they would torture me first. “I have told the warden to chain these other men to their beds, but not you,” he said. “You won’t know where to go if you escape, and you won’t be able to talk to people.” His eyes were now warm. He shook my hand. His handshake was firm. “When I saw you I said, ‘This man is from Nuristan.’ You look completely Afghan. But when you opened your mouth, you couldn’t speak Pashto.” He laughed. I was hurt. I did speak some Pashto. It was my accent. He was talking as if we were friends recounting an old experience together, not about the time when his men came running down the mountain, with rifles and grenade launchers,

I stared at the camera. At least my head was up as I waited for the knife or for the bullet to my head. The minutes passed. I waited, and I waited. My body was trembling inside. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t swallow. No one moved. I felt the rifle against my head. I waited. This was it.

The Maulavi took the camera and walked out. The men went with him. No one said anything. I slumped forward. A few minutes later the Maulavi returned again with the two gunmen who stood by the door watching me. He sat down in front of me. “I could see you were nervous,” he said. “That is why I have come back. No harm is going to come to you. We are going to negotiate a prisoner exchange. If that doesn’t work, we are going to ask you to make a donation to the mujahideen.”

I looked right at him. I was beyond fear. I didn’t know what to believe. Finally, remembering my position, I looked down, and up at him again. I nodded. I would pay him what ever he wanted. I would sell my apartment, borrow money from others, and go live in one room somewhere. I didn’t care. I would be happy there. “We called the other three men into a room and interrogated them there,” he said, “but I came here to see you. It was out of respect. No harm will come to you. Do you understand? You are important to us. We want you to go back to America and preach Islam and tell the world that the Taliban were kind to you.”



Taliban fighters at night | Jere Van Dyk





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and to free his hands. He wrapped a chain around part of the frame of Samad’s cot, then wrapped it around Samad’s left leg, took out a key and lock, and locked the chain.

He did the same to Razi Gul and to Daoud. I lay in my cot watching them. He took the lantern and left, bolting the door behind him. It was dark and silent. No one talked. I put my head down and pulled my quilt over my head. I wanted to be alone. I thought of my family. I thought of the e-mail I had sent to my niece Sarah. She was growing up. She was going to Europe. “It’s a coming-of-age thing,” she had said.

I cried softly for a few seconds. I hadn’t cried in years. I felt better, and I felt sad. I lay there thinking. How do I want to die, by beheading or with bullets across my chest? I imagined the bullets ripping into me, being thrown back, the burning sensation, wondering how long the pain would last, a few seconds, maybe longer. I thought of my neck. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. How long would it take, once they started to cut, before I died? I didn’t know how I wanted to die. I stared in the dark.

The door opened, and a group of men, with rifles and flash-lights, came in. Oh my God, here they come. This is it. They went to Daoud’s cot. He sat up and they gave him a cell phone. He put in a phone number. They walked out and shut the door and bolted it. “They wanted my brother’s number,” he said. I fell asleep. �

pointed them at us, and I thought I was dead. The man in the white jamay, now sitting on a kotgai, leaned forward, smiling warmly, his rifle across his lap. “I’m the one who talked to you in Nuristani,” he said.

I remembered. He was also the same man who stood next to me pointing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at my head. “I turned around so you would think I understood,” I replied. I smiled. I didn’t know what to think. I was alive. The gunman smiled back, his face lined with creases. His swagger and his dark sinister look of a few hours earlier were gone. For now.

The Maulavi stood up, and as he walked out he stopped, turned, and shook my hand again. He pointed to my cot. “Now put your sorrows underneath your bed and go to sleep,” he said. He and the others walked out, but the gunman who had talked to me in Nuristani, and who had had the piece of straw in his mouth, stayed behind. He put out his hand and smiled. We shook hands and he left.

I sat there for a long time. I was dazed. The room was dark now. There was only a lantern burning low. I stood up and walked slowly over to my bed. Gulob came in carrying a load of bright, thick, iron chains. Daoud, Samad, and Razi Gul were in their cots.

Gulob leaned over Samad’s cot, put his flashlight in his mouth to give himself light

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Ski scene

Afghanistan’s first homegrown ski guides are taking adventurous skiers deep into Bamian’s Koh-e-Baba mountain range to carve their way

down the virgin slopes, reports Jerome Starkey.

Was 2011Afghanistan’s

first ski season?

“This has been the first ski season in Afghanistan,” said Senor Rollando, 49, who is more used to guiding wealthy bankers in the Alps than aid workers and adventurers in the Hindu Kush. “It has been much better than we expected. We’ve had more than 100 ski days already.” With five tourists and me in tow, they began trudging towards the snow line.

Senor Rollando, the self-proclaimed “Ski Mullah,” has spent the last three months teaching Afghan children to ski, training local guides, and escorting a steady flow of tourists from Kabul, as part of a wide-ranging eco-tourism project supported by the Aga Khan Foundation and the New Zealand government, which has soldiers based in Bamyan province.

While Afghanistan might lack the normal trappings of a ski resort - electricity, plumbing and gallons of gluiwhein - there is certainly no

In the absence of a cable-car, a chairlift, or even a passable road, the ski-guides commandeered a donkey. Bemused famers

watched from their fields as the veteran Italian alpinist, Ferdinando Rollando, squabbled about the animal’s price. His apprentice, a teenage goat-herder from the next door valley, loaded the beast with brightly coloured skis.

It was a rare burst of colour and activity in a remote Afghan valley, high in the Hindu Kush mountains.

Senor Rollando wore a red coat, embroidered with instructors’ patches, and matching red ski-boots. Sayed Ali Shah, his Afghan apprentice, wore an iridescent purple one-piece, with lime green stripes. In Europe, their outfits would have screamed of a bygone decade, but in Afghanistan’s central highlands they looked distinctly futuristic.

Ski scene

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Italian ski guide Nando Rollando, 49, hikes up the slopes of Bamyan’s Hindu Kush mountains | Jerome Starkey







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The ruins - which were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 - are still Afghanistan’s main tourist attraction. Ticket sales from 2009 through 2010 show there were over 1500 international visitors and at least 4000 Afghans.

Other attractions include a series of spectacular high altitude lakes at Band-e Amir, which were granted National Park status in 2009, and pre-Islamic ruined forts, dotted throughout the province. Earlier this year the Wildlife Conservation Society announced the discovery of the world’s 12th largest natural arch, spanning 210ft in a dry river bed, in the north of the province.

Even so, the ski-program’s supporters admit they are only likely to attract the most intrepid winter sports enthusiasts, or ex-patriate staff already based in Afghanistan.

There are no commercial flights to Bamyan, and the roads - which take seven hours to Kabul - have been attacked by insurgents in the past. “Tourism depends on security,” said Jawad Wafa, whose guesthouse at the foot of the mountains includes a small ski-hire shop stocked with second-hand equipment and a couple of homemade skis, crafted by carpenters in the local bazaar.

Last year two American skiers spent the winter charting possible ski routes for a guide book, due to be published this year. “If security improves ski tourism will work,” Mr Wafa said. “If security gets worse, it won’t.”

shortage of mountains, and few, according to Senor Rollando, are better for back-country skiing than the north facing slopes of the Koh-e Baba range, in Bamyan.

“There are wide slopes on a perfect north face, and the weather is very dry, so the snow stays as powder for longer,” he said. Soaring above the ruins of a 5th Century Buddhist monastery and just a few hours drive from the country’s only National Park, aid workers hope the ski slopes will establish Bamyan as a year round tourist destination and provide much needed income.

“There’s still this image of Afghanistan as a country at war, but you can get quite a favourable impression by seeing the peaceful and secure nature of Bamyan, and by seeing people having fun - skiing of all things,” said Robert Thelen, regional director of the Aga Khan Foundation.

In the late 1970s Afghanistan boasted a one-run ski resort complete with small chairlift, outside Kabul. It was abandoned after the Soviet invasion and the slopes were mined. Today, it is in an area too dangerous to rebuild.

Bamyan, by contrast, is the safest province in Afghanistan because it’s largely Shia population hate the Taleban. The Taleban massacred thousands of Bamyan’s ethnic Hazaras and in February 2001 they used dynamite to destroy the world’s largest sitting Buddhas, carved into the cliff face overlooking Bamyan town.

Goat herder turned ski-guide Sayed Ali Shah, 17, grew up on a farm which he hopes to transform into a ski lodge | Jerome Starkey




Afghan Scene April -May 2011Ski scene Ski scene

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His apprentice, Sayed Ali Shah, still has not learnt to turn. “Technical skills is not the most relevant,” Senor Rollando insisted. “He is like a guide of two centuries ago. He is a shepherd. He knows life on the mountains.”

Were it not for our falls, it would have taken the rest of us less than a minute to reach the bottom. Senor Rollando’s verdict was withering. “You ski like a bourgeoise,” he told me. “Groomed piste style from 10 years ago, but you never win any races.”�

The skiing itself is exhausting. With artificial skins stuck to the underside of our skis for traction, we slogged up the slopes in Senor Rollando’s unforgiving wake.

It took almost ninety minutes to reach the first ridge line, and we could see the ruined Buddhas in the valley beneath us.

“There is only one type of skiing,” Senor Rollando said, by way of a lesson, before carving perfect S-shapes through the snow. “Good skiing.”

Sayed Ali Shah prepares to load a donkey with an assortment of cross-country skis and poles, so tourists can trek above the snow-line in Afghanistan’s central highlands | Jerome Starkey









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Why the Buddhas of Bamian were destroyed

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It would have been possible to save the Bamian Buddhas from destruction argues Michael Semple but western powers did not feel it was important enough to intervene



Small Bhudda niche | Emilie Jelinek





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Kofi Annan who visited Islamabad just as we received confirmation that the deed had been done. From what I saw during that episode I was convinced that we could help Afghans to save the Buddhas. But it would have required rather more lateral thinking that strait-jacketed diplomacy was capable of.

The first point to make is that many Afghans, including figures inside the Taleban Movement, took pride in the Buddhas as a part of their heritage and were fully opposed to the idea of destroying them. In 1997, when Taleban commander Abdul Wahed led a Taleban column attacking Bamian, then held by the Shia alliance Hezb-e Wahdat, he declared his intention to destroy the Buddhas. The Director of Archaeology of the Hazarajat regional government (such an entity operated, de facto) got on the phone to the BBC and triggered an international media alert. However it was sacrifices by Afghan young men on the front line against the Taleban which, that time, kept the barbarians out of Bamian. The Hazara front line held, the Taleban failed to capture Bamian and Abdul Wahed was forced to bide his time.

In 1998 when the Taleban did shoot their way into the Bamian valley, Abdul Wahed established a presence in the town and prepared to deliver on his threat. He had holes drilled around the head of the small Buddha ready for the placing of explosives.

However Mullah Omar appointed Maulawi Muhammad Islam of Ru-ye Doab as Bamian governor. As a Tatar from neighbouring Samangan Province, the Maulawi had

Taleban officials, acting under the direct authority of their leader Mullah Omar, and with encouragement from their

international and Pakistani jihadi allies, detonated the explosives under the Buddhas ten years ago. They thus take the blame for the destruction of these monuments. But there are some co-accused. The international community, through its disengagement and lack of seriousness in rendering effective assistance in Afghanistan, takes the blame for failing to prevent the destruction of the Buddhas. As the rock-cut figures were clearly a piece of world heritage, the failure to prevent the destruction was a lapse in ‘duty of care’. Of course, the world protested - both during the run up to the destruction and afterwards. But this was rhetorical. At no stage did any serious international actor ask what has to be done to save the Buddhas. There were options available. But they would have required a different kind of engagement from the rhetorical protests. And apparently no sufficiently vital interest was at sake to push people who counted into finding the means to achieve the objective.

At the time that the Taleban declared war on the Buddhas, I was serving as a United Nations Regional Coordination Officer, with responsibility including Bamian. I interacted with many of the Taleban figures involved, as well as the armed resistance to the Taleban and the ordinary people of Bamian who were horrified at what was being done literally over their heads. I also briefed the range of international players who expressed concern on the issue, including UN Secretary-General

leadership was by then lumbering along the path of confrontation, with moves to browbeat the UN and rather fantastic ordinances and prohibitions to control the population. However, war had not yet been declared on idols.

The first sign of this war on idols came when news leaked out of the Kabul Museum that a party of senior Taleban had forced their way in and sledge-hammered part of the museum’s collection of ancient statues. There was much speculation over whether this was genuine iconoclasm or a cover for smuggling antiques. However it inspired the first level of international response. Concerned Afghans tipped off an enthusiastic NGO, the Society for Preservation of Afghan Cultural Heritage (SPACH) which managed to trigger a troika of European ambassadors to travel from Islamabad to Kabul to intercede with the Taleban authorities. They stayed for nearly a week. But we knew that there was trouble when affable Taleban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel came back with the response that he required the clearance of higher authorities to be allowed to visit the museum. Meanwhile, Mullah Omar signed off on a rapidly composed new ordinance which provided the Taleban version of legal cover for the idol-smashing. Now the Buddhas of Bamian really were in trouble.

Things turned bad during the winter of 2000/01. For me, the most horrendous sign that the Taleban were prepared to sanction atrocities from the top came with the Yakaolang massacre in January 2001. During 1999 and 2000 those of us who were on the ground had documented

connections with all the commanders of Bamian from the jihad era. Whatever his other sins, Bamian was also a part of Maulawi Islam’s heritage. His deputies described to me how, when they saw what Abdul Wahed was doing, they contacted Mullah Omar in Kandahar and he gave the order to stop further drilling. That time round the combination of local mujahedin commanders within the Taleban structure and a supportive Mullah Omar saved the Buddhas before the world was even aware of the threat. In those days about the worse thing that happened was that a group of Taleban burnt tyres on top of the great Buddha. I managed to photograph the blackened head in early summer of 1999, when inspecting the havoc which the Taleban had wreaked on the civilian infrastructure. Thousands of houses and numerous Shia places of worship had been burnt down. Taleban had deliberately devastated the town after a brief Hezb-e Wahdat-led rebellion. But the Buddhas escaped with a black eye.

In the autumn of 2000, in one of my meetings with the Taleban authorities in Bamian, among other projects which they proposed, they requested United Nations assistance to reconstruct the network of drainage ditches around the top of the niches in which the Buddhas rested. They were concerned at the prospect of erosion damage if the ditches were not maintained. I agreed to pass on the various projects (our bit of the UN of course did not have any money!) meanwhile I recall quipping that in the current atmosphere Buddas were troublesome and so it might be better to brick up the niches and pretend to the Kandahari brothers that the Buddhas had left. The Taleban

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province) and a few Hazaras who had sided with the Emirate, plus core Taleban troops from Helmand and Kandahar. But there was also a resistance front operating in the vicinity. The Hazaras had struggled to rekindle armed resistance after the defeat in 1999. By early 2001, the tenuous supply lines had been re-established. Ustad Abdul Karim Khalili - now the Second Vice President of Afghanistan - was back in the field at the head of an out-gunned and out-numbered army which, when under pressure, had to disappear into the mist. But in winter/spring 2001 they were keeping Bamian under threat and even managed to capture it briefly for a couple of days. The Tajik Taleban commanders laughed loudly as they described to me how they had lost Bamian. They described it as going home for the weekend. When they saw the Tajiks retreating, the Kandahari forces, fearing having their throats cut by the wild Hazaras, had pulled out in panic.Hezb-e Wahdat moved in. The Tajiks and Kandaharis contacted Defence Minister Mullah Obaidullah, asking for more supplies. He obliged them. And the Hazara forces discretely pulled out again before the Taleban returned.

a sort of war against the civilian population, including the burning of houses in areas deemed hostile, the summary execution of groups of prisoners and mass round-ups into detention. But in Yakaolang, a district centre west of Bamian town, with Mullah Omar’s sanction, the Taleban commander operated a firing squad and had one hundred and sixty-six Hazara civilians machine-gunned.

Next the Taleban rhetoric started against idols in general and the Bamian Buddhas in particular. It was widely discussed and commented on. Everyone knew it was coming. Various Taleban friends also described meetings they participated in, in which some tried to argue in favour of saving the heritage again, until it became clear that, unlike 1998, this time the leadership had decided to sanction an assault on the Buddhas.

But there still were Afghans who could have been helped to intervene. The centre of Bamian was indeed garrisoned by the Taleban. The garrison consisted of mixed forces of local mujahedin, mainly Sunni Tajiks (from Bamian

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Bamian Bhudda niches | Jerome Starkey

“Apparently no sufficiently vital interest

was at stake to push the people who counted

into finding the means to achieve the objective.”





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it was peanuts. It seemed plausible that a cash injection would be part of any successful deal. I was careful not to ask too many questions on that as the UN certainly did not have the money and in Afghanistan the wise man should never boost expectations.

When the Taleban really did start to prepare to blow up the Buddhas, the rhetorical international operation, for all and sundry to be seen to be condemning it, started. The most sincere effort was, I believe, that of a Japanese parliamentary delegation. Three parliamentarians based themselves in Islamabad and started a shuttle diplomacy to Kandahar where they met with the same Mutawakil who had failed to get permission to visit Kabul Museum. Mullah Omar enjoyed teasing them, international supplicants whom he could string along with impunity. I had multiple sessions discussing with this pure-hearted delegation. They kept on thinking of new theological arguments to persuade the mullahs, even as they shifted their demands, just to be allowed to pay respect one last time before the demolition. And at one rather pathetic moment, even before the destruction, the delegation asked my assessment of the prospects of Japanese technology being able to piece the Buddhas together again.

But the issue was not about theology. Politics were destroying the Buddhas. An isolated regime, which had foisted itself on its own population and was being encouraged by al-Qaida to take on the world, had found a brilliant source of international publicity where it could strike a successful pose of defiance.

A reverse replay of this was all that was needed to save the Buddhas. The Tajik commanders pointed out that Khalil’s front-line was not far from the centre of the valley where the Buddhas were located. It just required someone to orchestrate a modest advance from Khalili, a choreographed retreat by the Tajiks, another panic among the Kandaharis - and the Buddhas could be left in no-man’s land, looking down on the two parties. The Taleban could promise to Mullah Omar that they would blow up the Buddhas whenever they got the chance. And they would wait, in classic Afghan style, for something to happen which would get them all out of the stand off. Parking the issue, it is called in the jargon.

As part of my duties in aid coordination I met regularly with Ustad Khalili. His cooperation was essential to our efforts to assist the displaced population in the growing area which his resistance forces controlled. I asked him if he thought that such a choreographed move might be possible. He knew the Tajik commanders I had talked to and said yes. He was happy with the idea.

It is Afghanistan. There was of course a question of money. Afghan commanders and armies rarely move without money. Who was going to pay to get the Tajik commanders to fall into line? I never went into the costing or the mechanics of who in the command chains needed to receive money to shift the frontline by a kilometre or so. I guessed that they were talking in the range of a hundred thousand dollars. We thought that was a lot of money in those days - but after September we realised

who cared, like the deeply sincere Japanese, remained stuck in a rhetorical engagement. They simply did not address Afghan reality. They appealed to the altruism or logic of Mullah Omar, while failing to engage and support the pragmatism of the Afghans who had the power to help, but would not risk doing so on their own. And of course the failure also occurred because other powers, who had a proven capacity to intervene in Afghanistan, were barely even on the case.

During the days that the Taleban were blowing up the Buddhas, I spent much of my time sitting in a Taleban base in Kabul, listening to the radio reports and graphic descriptions coming in from their men in Bamian. I was frustrated that as a humble mid-level UN staffer, neither I nor, even more, my organisation had been able to do anything. But the old mujahedin around me who, for intricate reasons, had been re-branded as Taleban felt exactly the same regret. They identified with these monuments far more than us outsiders. Needless to say, my regrets were not just for the Buddhas. Their destruction symbolises the thousands of lives lost and homes destroyed in Afghanistan when we either do nothing or do the wrong thing, remaining wedded to approaches which seem good in international fora but which do not actually work on the ground in Afghanistan. Me thinks the risk has not gone away. �

Our condemnation made it all the more important for the confrontationist leadership to go ahead with the destruction. The public arguments were barely relevant.

Parliamentarians do not have executive authority or budgets. I explained to the delegation how the Afghans could be helped to subvert Mullah Omar’s authority and dodge their way out of having to blow up the Buddhas. And I passed on Khalili’s number to the embassy’s political officer and explained that if they really wanted to save the Buddhas the only option was to cut a deal with both sides.

Many other people claimed to be interested. The Pakistan Government did its bit. The UNESCO envoy worked the case. Various Arab figures spoke out and visited. But it all amounted to so much hot air. If they had wanted to get something done in Afghanistan, they would have had to analyse the motives and capabilities of the different parties involved and come up with a strategy which worked with the grain of Afghan society, rather than against it. A strategy which worked rather than looked good was needed.

The Buddhas could have been saved. If we failed to stop the demolition it was because no one cared to deploy the means necessary to save them. This failure occurred partly because those

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Michael Semple has worked in Afghanistan pre- and post-Taleban, with NGOs and the UN. Currently, he is a Fellow at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. This text was originally written in response to a query from author Sandy Gall as to why no one saved the Buddhas. It later appeared at http://www.aan-afghanistan.org/index.asp?id=1538 and has been reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.





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When Duncan Penry came to Afghanistan he brought his paraglider with him. Here he describes making the first recorded free flight over the Bamian Bhuddas

Flying The Bamian Buddhas

automatically assessing conditions, picking out possible launch sites on the cliff tops, and working out likely wind directions and sun angles. Razak was knowledgeable on local conditions, but there were still worrying blanks, the most concerning being the presence of landmines. It has been a slow and risky job removing them and some locals say the job is incomplete. Self-doubt crept in: would flying here be adventurous or plain foolishness?

Surveying the cliff face the following morning, my attention was caught by a path to the plateau several hundred metres above, marked reassuringly with the white rocks that denote a route cleared of mines. Stepping gingerly around old trench positions at the cliff edge I examined gullies, ground and wind direction. We had woken to an air temperature of -15oC but, to my delight, warm thermal winds were beginning to cycle up the cliff face. The ground was stony and uneven, the angle uncomfortably steep, and there was a worrying absence of

I had been working for the past year on a development project in Afghanistan, and I’d brought my paraglider, hoping for adventure.

Bamian in particular was at the top of my list—as cultural icons go, the Buddha niches are right up there. Photos suggested that the cliffs and ridges around the site were flyable so, optimistically, I shoved my wing in the back before driving up. There’s been little free flying in Afghanistan—although the sport isn’t unheard of. Sam French’s short film Paragliding above the Afghan War showcased some of the country’s young talent making training flights from hills near Kabul a few years ago, and there were rumours of some unrecorded flights by transient international pilots. I had no expectation of a warm reception. I guessed that officialdom rather than security would be the major sticking point.

Sipping tea on the hotel roof with Razak, the long-serving manager, I took in the vista of empty niches bathed in evening light,

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49www.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene April -May 2011


Climbing out from the gullies above the Buddhas | Henry Collis





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country routes over this dramatic landscape in warmer weather, but for now it was clear that what little lift there had been was switching off.

It didn’t matter. Dizzy with success, I rode the smooth air past granular rock pocked with caves that had once held dazzling murals. I sensed rather than saw the awesome emptiness of the largest Buddha niche to my right, and banked the wing in tightly to get a better view. For a brief moment, I found myself at what would have been eye-level with the gigantic figure.

Losing height, I was suddenly aware of the excited children running from the fields, trying to anticipate where I would come down and reluctantly lined up to land. A crowd of curious onlookers surrounded me and Bamian’s Tourism Bureau chief bubbled enthusiastically with questions, inviting me to return to fly passengers on my tandem glider during the Nowroz celebrations. The adventure was just beginning. �

white rocks, but I knew it was a potential take-off site.

That afternoon, helped by the site director and a bored policeman, I laid out my wing. It was later than I had wanted, but the thermals were still coming. Rocks and roots snatched at the lines but the wing eventually rose cleanly and miraculously undamaged, allowing me to turn and commit to the loose and precipitous rubble gully I had chosen.

Relief at being off the ground was soon overtaken by the need to swiftly choose a line around the needle spires arrayed at the gully’s edge. Flying onto the main face I met a gentle valley wind and worked the wing through the lifting air, sometimes exploiting a spur that released warm thermal bubbles, sometimes scratching close to the rock to catch the updraft. But all this really only slowed the descent. I had spotted birds circling earlier in the day, pointing to the potential for cross

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51www.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene April -May 2011


Cliff launching from the minefield above the Bamiyan Buddhas | Henry Collis

“I rode the smooth air past granular rock pocked with caves that had once held dazzling murals.”




Afghan Scene April -May 2011Cartoon scene

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One U.S. service member’s break-up letter to Afghanistan

us to be getting involved to begin with, and I think they’re right. I’m just not ready for a relationship with a war-torn country right now. You want more than I’m prepared to give... and I love you but I’m not “in” love with you.

To be completely honest, I haven’t been faithful. There was Arizona... and there was New York City. And you just don’t quite compete. They offered me dirty martinis and first class flights... you offered me non-potable water that I was warned not to drink, and rocket attacks. They called me pretty and commented on my shoes, you called me “Ma’am” and took me to the same chow hall every single night. Not to mention, the very terrible cell phone and wifi service.

Believe me, there are other fish in the sea... and by fish I mean other bubbly, tiny Asian, doesn’t-take-themselves-too-seriously U.S. service members. And by sea I mean... CENTCOM.

There, there...it’ll be alright. I’m easy to get over, & just in a different league ;)

- J

Dear Afghanistan,

We need to talk.

Well...we had a good run, but when I said I liked sand, I meant next to the ocean and not in the form of a storm or in my lungs. So I’m going to pre-empt you now on Facebook like the classy girl that I am, and let you know that I’m breaking up with you soon.

It’s not you, it’s me.

Maybe we can be friends after this, maybe not. I just want to be free to wear my hair down and paint my toenails pink and break into spontaneous song and dance. And dammit I want to wear high heels and a different outfit every day.

I feel like we’re getting too serious... and a year is a long time for me as far as relationships go. You’re getting a bit clingy and needy, and I just need my space and independence.

My family and friends were pretty hesitant for

The following is an open letter from one US service member to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan...

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70s soiree - Ariel and Jules at Altai

Be sceneShare your event or party pics with Aghan Scene. Email [email protected]


Afghan Scene April -May 2011Party scene

Afghan Scene April -May 2011Party scene

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Madmen | Roshan ad duo Karima and JPH Media luvvies | Sayara team Shabeer, Nassir, Sebastian and Asim up at Salang

Hey Ladies | Golareh, Sarah-Jean and Mehrnoosh on the Royal Wedding Day

Back to the 70s | Rima, Emilie and Nicola at Altai

Adieu Adieu | Frenchies Luc and Herve at Luc’s going away partyI want to be in Afghan Scene | Birthday boy Cedric with Laila 70s soiree | Ariel and Jules at AltaiA very enthusiastic thumbs up | journos Laura and Jerome at a Kabul soiree




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Students at the Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture practise their gem-cutting skills on lapis lazuli. There is huge demand for places at the institute | Laura Lean

Murad Khanephoto essay

of its historic buildings, was lost through demolition, forced clearance, conflict, and administrative neglect. In recognition of the quarter’s immense cultural and architectural value, Murad Khane was listed on the World Monuments Fund’s 2008 Watch List of the world’s most endangered sites.

To conserve the historical richness contained in Murad Khane’s buildings, Turquoise Mountain, a Kabul-based charity, engaged in a wide-ranging architectural conservation project, restoring over twenty historic buildings, such as the Great Serai, the House of Double Columns, and Peacock House. Alongside the conservation of traditional buildings, Turquoise Mountain built a number of new buildings, combining traditional Afghan building techniques with those of modern construction.

Here, photographer Laura Lean documents the results.

Murad Khane is the last remaining section of the old city on the northern bank of the Kabul River, and is home to a diverse, multi-ethnic population and a bazaar that attracts 10,000 visitors each day.

Qizilbash merchants and courtiers, from a minority Shi-ite group of Persian descent, developed the area in the late 18th century. Over the course of the next hundred years it emerged as a commercial and cultural centre, selling traditional Afghan arts and crafts and attracting some of the most prominent craftsmen of the period. Ornate designs from India and Central Asia decorated the cedar facades of traditional courtyard houses and renowned artisans thrived in the bustling bazaar.

Murad Khane was slated for demolition in 1978 by Afghan and Soviet planners and suffered severe neglect. Much of the quarter’s cultural heritage, including many




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Interior of Peacock House, Murad Khane | Laura Lean







Shopping street, Murad Khane | Laura Lean







Restored plasterwork and woodwork in the Peacock House, Murad Khane, Kabul on 19 January 2011. Peacock House was built in the 19th century and was restored by the NGO Turquoise Mountain because of its historic architectural features | Laura Lean





Afghan EssentialsWhere to stay, where to eat, where to Shop. And how to pay for it.Afghan Scene Making Life Easier

Want to get on the Afghan Essentials list of places to eat and sleep? Contact [email protected]

Restaurants

DeliveryEasyfoodDelivers from any restaurant to your homewww.easyfood.afTel: 0796 555 000, 0796 555 001

AfghanJirga RestaurantStreet 10, left Lane 1, House 255. Tel: 077 730 0090

RumiQala-e Fatullah Main Rd, between Streets 5 & 6Tel: 0799 557 021

SufiStreet 1, Qala-e Fatullahwww.sufi.com.af Tel: 0774 212 256, 0700 210 651

Herat RestaurantShar-e Naw, main road,Diagonally opposite Cinema Park

Khosha RestaurantAbove the Golden Star Hotel. Tel: 0799 888 999

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Tex MexLa CantinaThird left off Butcher St,Shar-e NawTel: 0798 271 915

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The GrillStreet 15, Wazir Akbar Khan.Tel: 0799 818 283,0799 792 879

Cedar HouseBehind Kabul City Centre, Shar-e Naw Tel: 0799-121412

TurkishIstanbulMain road, on the left, between Massoud Circle Jalalabad Road Roundabout. Tel: 0799-407818

IranianShandizPakistan Embassy Street, off Street 14 Wazir Akbar KhanTel: 0799-342928

Italian/PizzaEverest PizzaMain Road, near Street 12Wazir Akbar Khanwww.everestpizza.comTel: 0700 263 636, 0799 317 979

Bella ItaliaStreet 14, Wazir Akbar KhanTel: 0799 600 666

Springfield Pizza Take AwayDutch Embassy Street, Shar-e Naw Tel: 0799 001 520

IndianNamasteStreet 15, left Lane 4, (last house on right side) Wazir Akbar Khan Tel: 0772 011 120

Delhi DarbarShar-e Naw, close to UK Sports Tel: 0799 324 899

Anar RestaurantLane 3, Street 14,Wazir Akbar Khan Tel: 0799 567 291

ChineseGolden Key Seafood RestaurantLane 4, Street 13, Wazir Akbar Khan. Tel: 0799 002 800, 0799 343 319

ThaiMai ThaiHouse 38, Lane 2, Street 15, Wazir Akbar Khan Tel:0796 423 040

KoreanNew WorldBetween Charayi Haji Yacub and Charayi Ansari, on the right. Shar-e Naw. Tel: 0799 199 509

Supermarkets, Grocers & Butchers

A-OneBottom of Shar-e Naw Park

ChelseaShar-e Naw main road, opposite Kabul Bank

SpinneysWazir Akbar Khan, opposite British Embassy

FinestWazir Akbar Khan Roundabout

Fat Man ForestWazir Akbar Khan, main road.

Enyat Modern ButcherQala-e Fatullah main road,Near street four

ATMsKabul City Centre, Shar-e Naw (AIB

AIB Main Office, Opposite Camp Egg-ers (AIB)

AIB Shar-e Naw Branch, next to Chelsea Supermarket (AIB)

HQ ISAF, Outside Cianos Pizzeria, US Embassy Street (AIB)

KAIA Military Airbase, Outside Cianos Pizzeria, Airport (AIB)

Finest Supermarket, Wazir Akbar Khan (AIB)

World Bank Guard Hut, Street 15 Wazir Akbar Khan (Standard Chartered)

Standard Chartered Branch, Street 10, Wazir Akbar Khan (Standard Chartered)

Hairdresser (Men & Women)

Call Mustafa on 079 888 4403Salon in Sanpo Guesthouse

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Hotels and Guesthouses

Kabul Serena HotelFroshgah Streetwww.serenahotels.comTel: 0799 654 000

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Gandamack Lodge HotelSherpur [email protected]: 0700 276 937, 0798 511 111

Mustafa HotelCharahi Sadaratwww.mustafahotel.comTel: 070 276 021

Heetal Plaza HotelStreet 14, Wazir Akbar Khanwww.heetal.comTel: 0799 167 824, 0799 159 697

Sanpo Guesthouse(formally Unica Guesthouse)Royal Mattress Haji Yaqoob Square

The International ClubHaji Yaqoob Square, Street 3, Shar-e Naw. Tel: 0774 763 858

Golden Star HotelCharrhay Haji Yaqoob,Shar-e Naw. www.kabulgoldenstarhotel.comTel: 0799 333 088, 0799 557 281

Roshan HotelCharaye Turabaz Khan,Shar-e Naw.Tel: 0799 335 424




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Defying the Taliban to preserve Afghanistan’s treasures

Yet all this might have been lost without the quiet banker who saved it from the Taliban.

Growing up in Kabul in the reign of the late king, Mr Askarzai had always been fascinated by the city’s banks. Desperate to work in these palaces of money, he secured an unpaid apprenticeship at 14 and went on to train at the city’s banking institute until getting his first job at 18.

His career inside the bank advanced, unhindered by outside coups and the Soviet invasion, until he became the resident expert in printing bank notes, and the official key holder for its vaults.

It was also a golden age of archaeological discovery in Afghanistan. Throughout the 20th century Soviet, French and American teams had combed the country’s deserts and mountains looking for forgotten cities dating to the time of Alexander the Great and beyond.

Sitting on ancient caravan trade routes and swept by invaders from Alexander to Genghis Khan, Afghanistan has some of the richest relics of any country.

Ameruddin Askarzai makes an unlikely national hero, seated in a dingy bank office surrounded by the paperwork of

Afghanistan’s unruly finances.

The shy bureaucrat with a neatly-trimmed moustache and brown corduroy suit has spent 45 years writing memos, countersigning requests and quietly rising through the country’s central bank.

But his unsung place in Afghan history is guaranteed by a national secret he once kept as assiduously as he now balances his books.

Because he kept it, despite machine-gun-toting Taliban fighters, visitors to the British Museum can see some of the most fabulous archaeological finds ever collected.

More than 230 pieces of Central Asian treasure dating back up to four millennia are on show in an exhibition called Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World.

The exhibition gathers the cream of Afghanistan’s archaeological inheritance, deposited through thousands of years of trade and conquest at the heart of Asia.

Many significant sites had already been found when the greatest discovery of all came in late 1978. Soviet archaeologists working near the northern town of Sheberghan, in what was the ancient kingdom of Bactria, broke into a low mound locals named Tillya Tepe - the hill of gold.

Awaiting them were six burial chambers containing 21,000 pieces of treasure which had lain undisturbed since around the time of Christ.

The wealthy nomads buried in Tillya Tepe had a staggering collection of ornaments, crowns, jewellery, belts and coins fashioned in gold, turquoise and lapis lazuli. Indian currency was mixed with Greek statues, Chinese mirrors and saddles from the Siberian steppe.

The Bactrian Gold immediately became the pride of Afghanistan and it was soon threatened by its very fame.

When Soviet troops began leaving in 1988, President Mohammed Najibullah and staff at the national museum decided the country’s golden treasures would be a target for the advancing Mujahideen resistance and had to be split up and hidden. As keeper of the vaults, Mr Askarzai was asked to help find a hiding place.

Omara Khan Masoudi, now general director of Kabul National Museum, still remembers the fear of losing the museum’s precious collection.

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With a widely heralded exhibition of Afghan treasures underway at the British Museum, Ben Farmer talks to the man who risked his life to preserve them.


Ameruddin Azkarzai | Majid Saeedi




Afghan Scene April -May 2011Afghan scene

these are also part of human culture.”

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, one of their first visits was to the central bank to check the country’s gold reserves. Into Mr Askarzai’s office burst a party of Kalashnikov wielding fighters escorting Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, first deputy of the council of ministers, and his culture minister Mullah Amir Khan. They had two metallurgists with them and demanded he take them to the vault in the presidential grounds.

“They put three pistols to my head, one in front and one each side and said they would kill me,” he said. “They told me I had to open the door.”Once inside the metallurgists made straight for the gold bullion, which remained and prepared chemical compounds to test its purity. Reassured the bars were genuine, they relaxed.“What’s in that room?” one minister said pointing to the annexe which held the treasure trunks.

“Just ceramics,” Mr Askarzai lied.

Seemingly satisfied, they left, but Mr Askarzai felt no relief. “I didn’t trust them,” he said. “I thought maybe some day they would come back and ask for the key and they would try to steal it all. It was for Afghanistan, not for them.”

As he closed the door, he purposely turned the key backwards and it broke in the lock, sealing the vault and its secret within.

The Taliban were not finished with the

“We thought that when the Mujahideen took power, if all these were stored in one place, perhaps they would all be stolen,” he recalled.

A handful of conspirators were sworn to secrecy and at Mr Askarzai’s suggestion picked a strong German-made vault in the presidential grounds to hold the best of the collection.

As Soviet tanks crossed the Amu Darya river back into the USSR, the conspirators drove six non-descript trunks containing the treasure from the museum to the vault. Once they were hidden in a back room, Mr Askarzai turned the key, scrambled the combination lock and walked away.

The next years were some of the cruellest in Kabul’s history. Rival warlords reduced the city to ruins as they rained rockets on each others’ positions and raped, tortured and killed as they fought from house to house. The national museum soon fell out of government hands and was burned and looted, losing an estimated 70 per cent of its collection.

Amid all this, the conspirators kept their secret. “We never gave the information to anyone about where it was,” recalls Mr Masoudi. “When we saw the situation was so bad, and everything was being looted, we kept silent.

“I trusted my colleagues. They were thinking about the preservation of this heritage. I think this belongs to everyone in Afghanistan and

Fearful of the Taliban and the press, Mr Askarzai was until recently unwilling to talk about his role as saviour of the national treasure. He will not be among a delegation of Afghan museum staff attending the exhibition opening and grumbles that others have made tens of thousands of pounds from their roles in the story.

The Afghan president two years ago awarded him a medal, but it has yet to be presented. “I’m waiting for His Excellency to have some spare time,” Mr Askarzai explains politely.

For now he continues his post as head of cash issuance at the central bank. “His Excellency the president says I can have my job until they carry me out on a stretcher,” he says with a smile. �

banker. In 2001 as they prepared to flee the US-backed forces toppling their regime, they made another rushed stop at the vault to cart off the gold. This time the door was sealed. “It told them I couldn’t open it. The lock was broken,” Mr Askarzai said. Helpless and furious, they fired into the air before disappearing south.

Their last act was to throw Mr Askarzai in prison in revenge. When Hamid Karzai needed someone to issue money for his new government, he was found - three months and 19 days later - and released.

It was not until 2003 that the conspirators felt comfortable enough to divulge their secret. Cutting torches were summoned and the vault was opened, to national jubilation.

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Ameruddin Azkarzai with Ben Farmer | Majid Saeedi





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Afghan Scene Magazine April/May 2011