Afghanistan

 In the months after September 11^th 2001, a veritable media race developed to cover the American led war in Afghanistan.  From September through the winter of 2002, reporters from all over the world fanned out over Afghanistan.

 This reporter as well could not resist.

 Though a news director’s job offers little opportunity to head to the front, a visit to Pakistan in November 2001, proved irresistible.

 And from Pakistan, Afghanistan was merely a bus ride.

 Taliban rule of the Afghan capital ended on November 12^th.  The following weekend, with Taliban defeat, the old warlord rulers of the Jalalabad region in the east returned after five years in exile.

 On November 18^th, I found myself sitting on the front porch of family home in Peshawar of the late Afghan leader Abdul Haq.   His family was offering security at 300 dollars a head to any journalist wishing to head across the border to Jalalabad.

 On November 20^th, I joined Haq Nawaz, a local Pushtun interpreter, cameraman Sarni Ocampo, producer Lara Hartzenbusch, three men armed with kalashnikovs, and ten other reporters for a journey through the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan.

 Unlike that many journalists, it was only a timid taste of the Afghan experience.   Reporters are strange animals.   If they don’t get at least a tiny fraction of a story, they feel left out.

We were not to be left out entirely.

The day before we ventured into Afghanistan was one of the saddest for journalists in the country.  Four reporters had been killed while traveling by road from Jalalabad to Kabul.  They had been dragged from their car by bandits and shot.  It discouraged further travel down that road. 

My acquaintance with Afghanistan BEGAN in the 1980’s when the Russians were preparing to end their ten year long entanglement with the country.

In 1989, the Russians pulled out, their armored columns driving north through Mazar-e-sharif to the Uzbek border and the city of Termez.

I followed them, riding in their tank columns.  

Putting their best face on their retreat, the Russian, like the Americans in Vietnam, told the Afghans they would stand-by them and return if necessary. They of course had no such intention.

By 1993, Afghanistan was descending again into war and anarchy.

By 1996, security and certainly discipline was restored in the most extreme way by the Taliban.

Report on the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 ( Click here for Part 1) ( Click here for Part 2)

 from the report of 5 February 1989

 “They were heading home.  Heading North along the Salang Highway.

Helicopter gunships provided air cover…”

 For more recent dispatches see next page. 

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