I have fond memories of Kabul.
I first visited the city in December 1991 when it was still leafy and tranquil and under communist control. I stayed in a small hotel in the centre of town and frequented the UN Club with Iranian photographer Alfred Yagobzadeh, who had done amazing work in Lebanon and in the Iran-Iraq war and was crazy enough for me to like immediately.
We attended a press conference where President Najibullah sat at the head of the longest table I’ve ever seen, and a few days later we were flown to Herat in a decrepit Soviet transport plane. Coming back, a riot broke out at Herat airport as hundreds of Afghans struggled to get a seat on the plane with their Kalashnikovs and chickens. Shots were fired, but we managed to take off, and the Russian pilots produced a bottle of Vodka, which was passed around in the pitch-dark cargo bay.
My next trip, in January 1993, was not easy. I set off from Peshawar with my friend Mirwais Jalil and AP Islamabad Bureau Chief Sharon Herbaugh and spent overnight in Jalalabad, where Governor Abdul Qadir invited us to sleep in his mansion after our Landcruiser broke down. Like every Pashtun mujahid I’ve met (including Hekmatyar and the Haqqani brothers), Qadir was impeccably hospitable. Over dinner, he said he admired the Western legal system and was running an enlightened administration with schools open and girls attending.
By now, Kabul lay in ruins. There was no electricity, no running water, and little shelter from the rockets Hekmatyar’s troops were firing into the city from Charasyab. It was a ghost town run by crazy-eyed men, with checkpoints at every intersection manned by different factions, and bodies rotting in the streets where they’d fallen. Still, with the help of Mirwais’s connections and cheerful manner, we managed to move around freely, and as in every chaotic conflict, everyone regardless of rank was eager to talk. I spoke with Hekmatyar, Dostum and Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari, and the only reason I didn’t meet Rabbani was that I got the flu.
Mirwais stayed in Kabul, and I returned to Pakistan by minibus, dressed in a shalwar kameez and draped in a shawl, and every time the bus stopped near an Arab camp along Jalalabad Road, I sank deeper into my seat.
Of the Afghans I met, Mazari was killed by the Taleban in 1995 and Najibullah in 1996. Abdul Qadir survived longer; he was shot dead by gunmen in 2002. His brother, the popular Pashtun leader Abdul Haq had been tortured and hanged by the Taleban in October, 2001.
Sharon Herbaugh was killed in a helicopter crash near Pul-i-Khumri on April 16, 1993.
Mirwais Jalil was murdered by Hekmatyar’s thugs on the road to Charasyab on July 29, 1994.
Alfred Yagobzadeh was kidnapped in Gaza City on March 14, 2006. Whether he’s alive I don’t know.
