Afghanistan Color Photos 2007

Abandoned helmet

Afghan mountain north of Kabul

King's Tomb restoration

Afghan ladies walking back from the children's hospital in Kabul

Afghan street urchins

Deminer in action

Old building in Kabul

It gets bitter cold in Afghanistan

Abandoned military hardware east of Kabul

Rocket tubes

Afghanistan Black and White Photos 2007

Abandoned Soviet truck

Man near Sangin

Mountain east of Kabul

Long, lonely road to Bagram

Nomad women returning to their village, south of Herat

South Kabul

Whats left of the wall around Kabul

Men outside the Masjit-Jami in Herat

Whats left of the famous minarets of Herat

Herati children

Russian jet of the Afghan Air Corp

Driving in Afghanistan

They are coming at you at 65 mph, no rules, no laws, driving on the wrong side of the road, can’t see you, and the cars are in bad shape. That’s Afghani traffic, probably one of the worse driving experiences I have ever encountered in my travels.

Driving in Afghanistan is not for the faint of heart, not by a long shot. The “Tapon de Bayamon” is nothing compared to driving here. Driving in Rio Piedras at 5pm on a Viernes Social is nothing. Afghani drivers make our Boricua drivers seem like saints destined for the heavens. Yes, it is that bad!

There are no traffic laws, or at least none that are enforced…well…you need real police to enforce them, for starters. Even though foreign countries are doing a marvelous job at training the Afghan national police, they are still a long way from becoming a law enforcement unit as we know it. And even when the national police is completely trained, the public has to obey them, they have to understand that when a police says stop, it means to bring the vehicle to a complete stop, not slow down and go around him. I say that because I have seen it happen. I have seen a “guardia palito” come out in the middle of the street with a baton and a whistle and attempt to stop traffic, only to have the vehicles go around him.

Since there are no laws, there is not an enforced speed limit, meaning they can drive as fast as their little rickety cars can go, whether it is 80 mph or just 15…it doesn’t matter.

Even if the police gave speeding tickets, how are people going to pay them? They don’t have the money to pay. They don’t even have the money for deodorant…and honestly, I don’t blame them, eating (surviving) should come before personal hygiene.

The vast majority of vehicles in the country are imported mainly from Pakistan, where they drive on the left side of the road, British style, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, of course. However, in Afghanistan, they drive on the right side of the road. Now this causes a serious problem because the driver sits on the right side of the car and cannot see the vehicles approaching unless he swerves all the way to the left (which they do). And they do this without fear or slowing down. So, for example, you can be driving at a leisure pace, minding your own business and thinking of pasteles or morcillas, when all of the sudden there is a 5 ton truck coming at you dead on, doing 80 mph, on a road that is no more than 10 meters wide!

Next problem is the status of the vehicles in the country. There isn’t a single car that would pass a proper safety inspection, except of course the ex-patriates cars, since they are mostly brand new. I have seen cars with 4 different size tires on, cars with no windshields, cars on top of public buses, and cars on top of cars. I have seen trucks carrying 4 times their maximum loads, buses with camels, sheep, cows and humans on the roof…at the same time! The Afghani vehicles make our “Boricua carcachitas” look like brand new limousines or brand new SUVs.

Another interesting traffic problem is the fact that streets and roads are not only for vehicles, no sir, anyone can use the roads, motorcycles and bicycles (all 10 million of them), pedestrians, mothers with children, pregnant women, cows, sheep herds, chupacabras…anyone…and they do. This makes it very difficult to drive defensively since they haven’t figured out how to put turn signals on cows and other animals.

And if you want to talk about road rage, take in consideration the fact the 90% of the drivers have weapons! In Puerto Rico you might get yelled at or at worse you might get the finger…here you get the muzzle of an AK-47 assault rifle pointed at you.

 No, driving in Afghanistan takes you to another level; it will raise your blood pressure faster than eating 10 lbs of morcillas. I rather bicycle down el Yunque on a hot day on a bike with no brakes, after drinking 10 Medallas and a half bottle of Don Q, than drive in Afghanistan…yet we all did.

Gun Deal

The black Land Cruiser approached the meeting point fast, perhaps too fast. Something was definitely not right. I chambered a round in my Glock and was feeling the first drops of sweat racing down my forehead. I pulled out of the side of the road and made a U-turn to be able to follow the Land Cruiser. In a matter of 200 meters we must have passed 5 or 6 policemen just sitting idly, not even paying attention to the two identical Land Cruisers speeding by. Too many police, not a good thing.

The day before we had gotten word from a “friend” we called Black Pajama, that he had some weapons for sale. This being Afghanistan could only mean one-thing…illegal weapons. Which was fine by us because there just wasn’t a gun shop we could stroll in and buy AK-47’s.  Through our interpreter we learned that Black Pajama wanted us to go to a meeting place in front of a hotel. Having been here for over three years I knew this hotel was located on the northwest side of Kabul, an area controlled by Northern Alliance people…Ahmad Shah Massood’s people. That afternoon we made contact with Black Pajama and asked him why he couldn’t just bring the weapons to our villa, it is safe and secure, he shouldn’t have any problem at all. He send message back saying that even though he is very well connected all around, he didn’t want to risk getting caught with 40 AK-47’s and assorted hand guns and ammunition in territory not controlled by his people. Can’t say that I blame him.

As I approached Black Pajama’s black Land Cruiser my eyes were everywhere, on the police to my left, to the men exiting the hotel front door on my right, the vehicles coming around the traffic circle right behind me. I was looking for all possible threats and avenues of exit in case we have to make an emergency exit. I know my partner was doing the same. Gun running is not an easy thing to do anywhere in the world, let alone in Afghanistan.

The original plan was for us to pull up behind Black Pajama and for my partner to jump in his vehicle and check out all the weapons, while I stayed in our Land Cruiser and watch his “six” just in case the deal goes south. Dave would check the weapons, bring them to our vehicle, I would give him the $6,000 in cash I had in my vest and he would give the money to Black Pajama, everything in front of the police. We estimated 30 minutes max, in and out. But like any good plan, this one was about to change drastically.

As soon as I parked behind him, Black Pajama got out of his vehicle as did my translator, and they hugged and smiled and laughed like long lost brothers. By their body language and gestures we figured that we were to follow Black Pajama somewhere else to do the deed. After a few minutes of cordialities we followed him through the dirty and dusty streets of West Kabul. Winding in and out of neighborhoods that I had never been in before; thousands of eyes staring at us; racing to keep up with Black Pajama who was driving like he owned the place. One thing that impressed us was that at a very busy intersection he just drove to the middle and blocked traffic so we can cross and keep up with him. Now that is something an amateur does not do, this guy definitely knew what he was doing. That sort of made us feel a little bit better; however, I was having a hard time remembering all the turns, was it three to the left and then two to the right? I have to say that if anything had happened I would have had a hard time getting out of there quickly.

We made a right turn into a very dusty and foul smelling street and pulled over in front of the third house on the left, what we were assuming was his house. We all got out of our vehicles and while Black Pajama opened the front door, we scanned both sides of the streets making sure we didn’t see anything suspicious.  We entered the courtyard and proceeded to his living room. The room was furnished with a multitude of comfortable sofas and chairs. I took a seat next to the door and Dave sat facing it and to the side. We had the entrance covered. To say that we wanted to do the deal and get out of there fast was an understatement. But it was not to be, the cigarettes, nuts, fruits and tea came out and our translator started to shoot the bull with Black Pajama in the best Afghan tradition. My cell phone rang and it startled me, it was one of our mates calling to check on us as agreed. He had been calling every 20 minutes to make sure we were still alive. Every new sound made me look around, every time the door opened I got a bit jumpier, we had to do the deed and get out of there. From a 30-minute plan, we were into two hours and we still haven’t seen a damn weapon.

I started the bargaining by asking him if the weapons were here. “Of course!” He said. Never forgetting that we were in his house, I politely asked if we could see a “sample”.

We proceeded down very narrow steps to his basement, to his very dusty and dark basement. This time I went down first and Dave brought the rear, our hands never far off our weapons. In the basement, covered with old carpets and two centuries of dust we found hundreds of ammo cans. So far so good, Black Pajama had the ammo. Now we needed to see weapons.

And that came next; he asked us to follow him outside the house, so moving up the narrow stairs from the basement to the ground floor, I was wondering what was in store for us now. From the room we had been eating at, we followed him to the front and outside of the house, to the back of his Land Cruiser. He opened the truck and lo and behold he had the weapons in the back of his vehicle all along. There were are least 50 AK-47’s there, all covered with an old carpet. Getting a bit nervous for standing in the middle of a street in Kabul looking at AK-47s, I asked him if we could take eight inside and check them out. He immediately agreed to it and told his “boy” to take them in, while Dave and I kept our eyes everywhere.

Again, being polite and trying not to offend we asked if we could take the weapons apart to further inspect them, “koneshna” he said, using the Russian word for “Of Course”. We proceeded to tear the weapons apart and checked them; they were all good weapons, very good actually, compared to what I had seen in the last 3 and half years in Afghanistan.

The weapons looked as if they had been buried for a long time, there were dirt and leaves in them. I mentioned that to Black Pajama to which responded “well what do you expect? I had to keep them hidden for many years!” I guess we had to laugh at that.

What we wanted to do then was test fire the weapons, he said no problem, he asked his helper to get us some magazines so we can test fire them. I asked him were did he intend for us to shoot the guns and he said “In my backyard of course!” That’s where we had to draw the line and accept his word that the guns were good.  We were not about to shoot eight AKs in the air in the middle of Kabul. There is an old saying that whatever goes up, must come down…eventually.

To show our appreciation for what he was doing for us and his hospitality, I pulled one of my .45 cal magazines and emptied in my hand and gave the bullets to him…all 14 of them. I knew he had a Colt .45 but had no rounds, so I decided to give him some of mine, knowing that I still had two other full magazines. He was very moved by the gesture and embraced me and told me that we were now real friends.

So now the payment. We asked him if he wanted the money now or later, he said he would come to our villa later and get it from us. What about the guns? He said he trusted us now and that we could take the guns with us; he really didn’t want to go to our side of the city and risk getting stopped by the police with the guns in his trunk.

After placing the weapons and ammo in the back of our Land Cruiser we got ready to go, but I realized that everything was exposed in the back. Dave asked Black Pajama for something to cover the weapons. He came out with a carpet.

My translator said something to the effect that the deed was done and we were finished. What I was thinking was that it ain’t over until it’s over, and for us that was when we drove into our villa and the front gate was closed and locked. We still had to drive across the city and anything could happen: the police could stop, unlikely; we could get a flat tire, likely; or worse, this could all be a set up and Black Pajama might call the police and tell them about us, highly unlikely. Needless to say I drove as fast as possible without drawing too much attention and made it to our villa in record time. As soon as the gates closed we all let out a sigh of relief, it was over.

Mine Victim

One of the hardest aspects of my profession is dealing with mine victims, both during the accident and the period afterwards.  During the seconds after accident you go into automatic, you don’t have time to think, you DON’T think, you just react. You do what you have to do to get the job done and hopefully save a life. The gruesomeness of the accident normally doesn’t bother you; you look past it and accomplish your job.

After the victim is taken away to a medical facility and you are left behind in the aftermath of the accident, that is when the nerves hit you and your knees start to shake a bit. But you have to learn to deal with it because the work is not over yet. There is still a lot more things to get done, reports to write, clean up, and investigations to get started. These investigations are very crucial to determine the cause of the accident so that it can be prevented again, especially if we are doing a wrong procedural step.

That is the physical part; the emotional part comes later, as was the case for me in February 2007. It was at this time that I was tasked to negotiate a settlement between the company I worked for and a mine victim’s family. The way it is done in Afghanistan is that the company has to meet with victim’s family and village and negotiate a cash settlement. In the International Mine Standards for Mine Action there is a chart that establishes the amount of money to be paid to a victim according to the type of injury. This forms the basis to enter into negotiations.

And so my journey started thru the cold and muddy streets of Kabul towards my meeting with Wali’s family. Four months ago Wali got out of his truck and against the advice of deminers present proceeded into a known, active minefield and stepped on a soviet PMN anti-personnel landmine. Wali was not even contracted by us; he was hired by the company we contracted. So even though the accident was entirely his own fault, here I was going to give him money.

As my driver drove at Mach 3 thru the backstreets of Kabul, weaving in and out of traffic, I was thinking how to tell the grandfather and father of what their kid’s leg was worth…how does one do that? I was going alone with a translator. It was still Kabul so my guard was never down; with my sidearm on my hip I kept my eyes all over the place. I didn’t know what I was to expect, a friendly family or one that was overly hostile and belligerent; were these people former Mujahideen or pro-Taliban sympathizers or worse still…active Taliban.

We turned into an unpaved road and made 4 or 5 more turns, enough to get me disoriented…not good. We pulled over in front of a three story building with eight young men sitting directly across the street and three others right next to the door I was to go into…not good. Was I getting into an ambush? I kept looking at hands and eyes for any overt sign of hostility but found none…paranoia perhaps?

As we climbed the stairs to the third floor room, there were plenty of eyes looking thru barely open doors, all the kids wanted to look at the white man in their building. Climbing those dark, cold, dusty steps did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. At the top of the steps I was greeted by a warm, smiling grandfather. Ekhrudin invited me into what I guessed was their living room. I removed my boots and entered a very cold room, furnished by pillows, carpets, a table with tea and a pot-belly stove. We started with nice pleasantries, as is the custom, but as pleasant as it seemed I never forgot I was not in a friendly city so I sat on a carpet, facing the door, with the windows on my right side. I had clear escape routes if things turned sour. A few minutes after arrival, Wali entered. I had never met him before and he seemed a very nice young man.

With the room rapidly filling up with relatives I was eager to start, the sooner I had an agreement, the sooner I can get out of “dodge”. So taking the initiative, I started telling Ekhrudin my purpose for the visit. He listened intently. After stating my case to the family, Ekhrudin stood up and pronounced solemnly to all present that he was happy with the cash offer, and immediately brought some food out along with the ever present green tea.  And thus the negotiations ended, as quickly as I started them, he finished them.

Grandfather Ekhrudin started to tell me about his fleeing Paktia province with his family, running from the hold of the Taliban. Now it was my turn to become the listener. The story was fascinating and intriguing leaving anyone listening with the thirst for more. Grandpa stood up and announced that he had prepared a meal for me; I was completely astonished by his hospitality. Unfortunately I had a full day of meetings and didn’t have time to stay. I got up to leave and accorded with Grandpa that we should get together at a later day to talk some more. I thanked him as politely as I could for his understanding, for his hospitality and for accepting my offer. I expressed my sincere feelings over a much unfortunate accident and departed the house.

On the way back I asked my translator why the family had been so quick to accept our offer without bargaining. He stated there were various reasons. The first and most important was that they had accepted that the accident had been Wali’s fault and understood completely that we had no responsibility or obligation to engage into a monetary negotiation with them and that we were doing out of a moral, not legal obligation. The next reason was that Grandpa had taken a liking to me, he liked my honesty. That certainly made me happy.

It was still very hard to sit there and put a price on a human limb, and have to negotiate over it as if it were a piece of meat hanging at the butcher’s shop.

This is certainly one part of my job that I don’t care to repeat. The only thing that made this task bearable was Ekhrudin’s Afghan hospitality.

Attack!

It was time for me to go home. I had been in country now for 5 months and the holidays where fast approaching. The problem was that everyone was in the same boat, and day by day there were fewer of us Security Coordinators left in country. Therefore the few of us staying until the last possible day had to cover for the guys that had already left.

I got sent to the Kajiki Dam site for two reasons: I started that project back in August and because I had a good working relationship with the permanent coordinator, Bill. After a day’s turnover Bill was gone and I was in charge of the project. The first thing that happened was that my boss in Kabul emailed me and told me that they just got information of a threat of attack to the Dam site. Great I thought, I haven’t been here two days and now I am going to get attacked. Not what I wanted to happen a week before going home.

First order of business was to inform all the managers so they can take charge and be accountable for their people. Things were not right though, I could feel something was in the air. After being in country for almost a year, you can read peoples’ behavior, and amongst all the locals working with us there was certainly something wrong. They would not look at me in the face and where otherwise very evasive. Not good I thought. After making my initial notification to all the managers, the next thing I did was to head to my room to check my equipment.

I closed the door and laid out all my kit on the bed. I made sure I had at least 4 fragmentation and 2 smoke grenades and that their safety pins where all in place; I then checked all my AK-47 magazines to make sure they were full; and finally took my rifle and handgun and checked them and gave them a thorough cleaning. There was no way in hell that I was going to lose it in this country due to a faulty weapon, I knew better than that. Having done all that and being satisfied that everything was in order, it was time for the next thing: check all my posts.

I called my assistant Noor Agha and informed him what was happening. I told him that we would be checking all the posts and not to tell anyone. I didn’t want to let anyone know that we knew…they just might hit us harder. We started from my place and I immediately noticed things were not right, the first check point we came to was empty!

This was the check point closest to my house and where all the ex-pats live. After sorting this one we moved to the next one, the one separating us from the village. The funny thing was that all the soldiers from the first check point were at the second one. What was going on? They all knew, that’s what. And once could sense it in the air that they were nervous.

About 100 meters from this check point is Tangin, a known pro-Taliban village. It was  separated from us by a 100 meter long bridge. So what I have in my hands is a threat of an attack by the Taliban, possibly coming from the village that is only 100 meters away, and I am guarded by 150 very nervous and trigger happy soldiers that for all I know could all be Taliban or ex-Taliban (as if that mattered).

It was around 5pm when we returned to our house, after checking all the posts. It was going to be a cold, dark and windy night, not good for us but very good indeed for them. And the darker it got, the more nervous I got. The problem is that since I was responsible for the safety of 10 foreigners, I could not show weakness, I could not show how nervous I was. I needed these guys to trust me. If the shit hit the fan I needed these guys to obey every order I gave, for their safety.

Around 8pm I gave everyone an update on the situation and told them what I had done to ensure their safety. One of the things I did was to move my assistant to the room next to mine so he could help me defend if needed. I also moved the QRF (Quick Reaction Force-8 heavily armed soldiers) next to our building and placed them on standby all night long. Noor Agha and I moved all of our kit to the roof around 10 pm and started taking 2 hour shifts.

It was dark, very, very dark. I only had one set of night vision goggles and not very good at that, they were old, but at least it was something.  I cannot remember being this nervous in a long time. I could feel it in the air, something was very wrong. We spent the rest of the night awake, the hell with the 2 hour shifts, I wanted to be awake and be able to respond immediately.

Every sound, every little something we looked, straining our eyesight, straining our hearing against the noise of the passing river 50 meters in front of us. Every shadow a possible bad guy, every branch an enemy Kalishnikov pointed at us. It was nerve wrecking to say the least. Because of the time of year, darkness was long, very long. The first rays of welcomed light came around 6:30am, and not too soon.  And with the light came relaxation, we didn’t get hit in the dark so that was a blessing, we could relax at the thought that a night attack didn’t come.

Matter of fact, no attack ever came while I was there. The Taliban often likes to play the game of threatening an attack to see what you will do, and we know it. The problem is that we don’t know when the real thing is coming so we have to react every time for the safety of the people we protect.

Arrival in Afghanistan

I have traveled a lot in my years in the military and seen many different things but Afghanistan was different than any other place.

First, for those readers that have never been to Afghanistan or any other far away place…getting there is an experience in it itself. The trip there took me from Florida to Washington, to Germany and to Dubai, where I spent 3 days waiting for the flight into Kabul. That first part of the journey is bad enough to discourage even the best of travelers.

Flying into Kabul took me over some pretty rugged terrain, and incredibly huge mountains. Looking out the window I saw nothing but brown, hardly a patch of green. Granted, it was the middle of the winter, January 2004, but I was expecting to see at least a snow covered city. Kabul is located in the middle of what seemed to me a crater. In actuality, the city is surrounded on most sides by mountains so the plane cannot make a straight on approach. Instead we flew around in circles over the city losing altitude, like a bird of prey circling over its victim, until the right time to make its kill. A few feet over the runway I noticed several groups of men working to one side, I immediately recognized them as deminers. I just couldn’t believe that demining was going on just a few meters from an active runway. Everywhere I looked there were signs of war, abandoned military vehicles, shot up houses, and military encampments. I was thinking to myself “here we go again, in the middle of the shit once more”.

I was one of the first ones off the plane. I nearly ran to the head of the line since I had heard they were notoriously long. At the immigration line, the line completely disappeared and chaos reigned, it immediately reminded me of the Ethiopian airport. From experience I knew to do nothing and let the crowd and mayhem sort itself out. Before I knew it I was in the back of the line, so I sat down and lit a cigarette with an Italian woman coming to work for the UN.  While sitting there I took notice of the inside of the terminal (if you want to call it that). There were bullet holes all over the inside as well as explosion damage along with shrapnel “injuries” to the walls and overhead. I was trying to imagine what kind of fighting took place in here, had anyone died right in the same place I was now sitting, surely so.

It took nearly an hour to move the 20 meters to the counter, where one man stamped my passport and handed it to me. Less than 2 meters away another man took my passport and wrote its number in an old notebook. Another two meters yet another man took my passport and scanned it in a machine. No wonder it took forever to get thru the line and into baggage claim. As expected, my bags were there all alone by time I got to rescue them. Stepping outside was mayhem, there were Dutch soldiers guarding the airport terminal, and a throng of Afghanis standing around for I don’t know what. My boss was there immediately to rescue me from the masses, and into our Land Cruiser we went heading for the city.

I started to see the city right away for what it was, a war torn city, after years of rival mullahs fighting amongst themselves and against foreign invaders. From the recent western coalition against the Taliban, to the soviet invasion, all the way back to Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. This nation and its capital have been at war forever and ever. Creating a fighting force of indomitable strength and courage, the mujahideen, what we know as freedom fighters. Every where I looked in the city there were bullet holes, decimated blocks of city, destroyed buildings and houses and yet people were going about their business as if nothing had ever happened. The necessity of living. There didn’t seem to be any infrastructure at all. The streets were all damaged, and dirty. In the days to follow I would find out that power was not constant. Water was un-drinkable. And the police force…well lets just say that there was one.

War had finished quite a while ago but, I was very apprehensive going to Kabul. Bin Laden had not been captured yet and contrary to what people might think Al Qaeda was not gone from the country. It was still a very dangerous city, something I was to find very shortly. So now I found myself in a foreign land still waging a covert war, not the warmest of feelings!