With war all around, misery is relentless

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| Wednesday, July 09, 2008 |

Editor’s note: This glimpse of life at the front lines of the war in Afghanistan from Lara Logan originally was published on Oct. 29, 2001.

NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN — The flies in this part of Afghanistan seem possessed with an unusual sense of purpose — quite unlike the mindless buzzing that we in the Western world are used to.

Here you can enjoy being dive-bombed with a kind of dedication normally attributed to religious zealots or suicide terrorists. That’s hardly surprising in the relentless land of dirt and dust that has given birth to some of the world’s toughest terrorists, some of whom could be a half-mile from me as I write.

I am crouched against a wall in a run-down mud compound, occupied by the United Front Opposition Forces, also known as the Northern Alliance. We’re surrounded by Taliban troops to the south, east and west of this small enclave. In fact, the closest Taliban positions lie just a half-mile in front of me in the direction of Kabul, the capital.

Every now and then, the still, hazy air explodes with the thunderous boom of U.S.-led airstrikes hitting Kabul and targets to the north. I can see a massive plume of dark smoke hovering over the capital and smaller white smoke clouds shooting into the air above targets in the hills three miles from me.

The U.S. attack seems to be moving closer and closer to the Taliban front-line positions. But the local commander here tells me America is missing its targets. And it’s impossible for me to confirm anything I’m told.

Local people I speak to are impatient. They waited weeks for airstrikes to begin, now they want to see their effect, especially the destruction of the Taliban. They don’t understand how or why their enemy remains in control of Kabul, and they are starting to ask if America is really strong enough to remove it.

After more than two weeks here, I have officially become a non-person, hidden under my suffocating head scarf and the weight of oppressive, religious rule governing female behavior.

My eyes are almost permanently lowered to the ground, as much for my own protection as for anything else. But now, out of angry defiance, I stare back at a young mujahedeen soldier who is standing uncomfortably close. I glare at him with all the frustration and discomfort that’s been building inside me since my feet first touched Afghan soil. My eyes, unwavering and full of rage, eventually overpower his and he turns away, a small, meaningless victory.

Looking down below from my position on the roof, I can see unexploded mortars scattered on the grass — rejects of this ragtag army that hardly seems capable of launching an assault on Kabul. The local wasp colonies, on the other hand, are quite keen on launching their own massive airstrikes. And, unfortunately, their targets are much easier to reach.

There are signs that the Taliban are feeling the pressure of the American attack. A group of 10 Taliban defectors told me they are running out of ammunition and are frightened of the bombings. But they warned that the Taliban still were prepared to fight and should not be underestimated.

With each passing day, an assault on Kabul seems further away, and the guessing game is increasingly wearing. The struggle to survive conditions here gets harder and harder. My battle peaked with a trip to the local hospital — not as a curious journalist, but rather as a somewhat pathetic patient. It started with a small, red patch on my right arm — hardly worth worrying about, amazing that I even noticed it at all.

Within a day, it had spread to 10 to 12 smallish red lumps; within four days, I desperately needed to see a doctor. As we navigated our way through rows of mud houses and crude graveyards in search of the hospital, I fought the urge to scratch at my eyes, cheeks, arms, chest and legs. I had by now spent several sleepless nights counting the bites that threatened to engulf every part of my body — they currently numbered more than 80.

Security men at the hospital gate were not overly keen on allowing me to enter. “You have a piece of paper from the government?” my Afghan interpreter, John Iqbal, asked me. Yet another bureaucratic stumbling block erected needlessly in my way — so typical of life here.

My bad-tempered response and slightly crazed gestures won me a reluctant right of passage, and I stormed through the gates. My eyes fell immediately on an old man sleeping in the dirt.

His son sat beside him, anxiously watching over his death sleep. The doctor told me there was little hope for him, and no room left in the casualty area where I waited to be seen.

Inside this dark, cramped space, there was the most awful smell. Five patients lay on stretchers that were crammed together, with anxious relatives squeezed in between.

To my relief, a door opened onto a smaller room and a doctor beckoned to me in the local Persian language. A summary examination proved what I already knew.

“Insect,” declared this particular man of medicine. Through my translator, he prescribed an injection followed by a course of antihistamine tablets. At the mere mention of the injection, my overburdened brain conjured up images of lethal bacteria let loose in my system, and I yelled for assistance from my colleague in British television, Sean Swan, who came along to hold my hand.

Once we had established that the needles in my own first aid pack were too small, and that those belonging to the hospital still were wrapped in sterile plastic packaging, I submitted to one of my least favorite medical practices. As the needle entered my vein, I gripped Sean’s leg, and within seconds I could feel myself slipping away. My last memory was that of being carried from the hospital in Sean’s arms to the car. I resurfaced about 20 hours later, feeling as if I’d been obliterated by a steam train traveling at the speed of light.

A call to a doctor in London established that I had been given the appropriate treatment, and I embarked sluggishly on the road to recovery. The same cannot be said for our toilet facilities, which are on a rapid descent to hell.

I awoke from my coma with a ferocious appetite, which is nothing short of torture in this land of rice and inedible meat you see hanging from the market shacks in the blazing sun covered in flies.

I already have selected my meal of choice for when I return to the modern world that I’ve come to appreciate so much. And that is a plate of tortilla chips smothered in cheese sauce, fresh tomato salsa, guacamole and sour cream. A few olives perhaps and some refried beans, but no meat for this currently undernourished vegetarian.

Normally, I would feel guilty contemplating my departure. My thoughts would be with the people I would be leaving behind who don’t share the luxury of choice that I enjoy. They will remain here, fighting to survive in this heartless terrain, Kabul, the only glimmer of hope shimmering in the distance. And the possibility the capital may be theirs again in the not-too-distant future.

How much the change of power will alter life here is unclear. There is a name the journalists have given the United Front, and it is “Taliban Lite” because of the similarities seen here with other areas under Taliban control. The most visible example of this is the phantom shape of women covered from head to toe in their traditional flowing robes. The cities, I’m told, are different from the countryside — more open. It’s hard to imagine that when being chastised for having bare arms under my shawl. Lately it feels more like a noose around my neck than anything else.