WashPost

Kabul Awakes to a Freer Way of Life Shaving Beards and Playing Music, Residents Celebrate Taliban's Departure

By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, November 13, 2001; 1:46 PM

KABUL, Nov. 13 – The widowed mother of four wants to shed the long flowing burqa that covers her from head to toe. The vendor wants to go to the barber shop to trim his bushy beard. And the taxi driver delights in a cassette of traditional Afghan music playing at full blast.

Afghanistan's capital awakened cautiously today to a new life without the oppressive rule of the Taliban, whose strict interpretation of Islam banned music, kept girls from school, prohibited women from working, shut theaters and forced all men to grow beards. Many here said seeing the Taliban depart – hastily in the night, belongings piled high on trucks – was like having a heavy veil lifted after five years of darkness.

"We just died in this country," said Sayed Ali, 21. "Nothing is left. We just pray to God to eliminate those Taliban as soon as possible. Everybody has gotten tired of this life, this constant changing of regime. . . . If you look at my face, I look 35 or 40. Since the Taliban took over, we haven't understood the pleasure of life."

"I feel like I've just been born – it's my second life!" cried Ahmed Farid, 27, a shopkeeper. "On the first day the Taliban took over, we were happy because we thought there would be security. Then we realized that these were not Afghans; they were Arabs and Pakistanis and others."

Farid recalled how in the early days of Taliban rule, he trimmed his beard to attend a wedding party – an offense that ran afoul of the Taliban's religious police and landed him seven days in jail. Now he said he looks forward to going to the barber shop, "for trimming, trimming."

"They were controlling every part of our life," said Hassibullah, 19, a student. "We weren't allowed to play football. We weren't allowed to go to sports clubs. We weren't allowed to feel like other human beings."

For women, especially, Taliban rule was exceptionally harsh. Women were forced into the traditional burqas, they were prohibited from working or attending school, and they could not go outside their homes without the company of a male relative. Now, women said, they are hoping their rights will be restored.

"I'm happy, because I believe now the doors of the schools will be open for girls," said Nabillah Hasimi, 32, a teacher. She said she continued teaching children secretly, risking imprisonment by going from house to house to meet with about 15 girls. Now, she said, "I'm waiting for normal life, for security to return."

Hasimi spoke from behind the face netting of her blue burqa. She never wore one before the Taliban took over, and she said she will decide whether to shed it once she is sure the old regime is gone for good. "Faith is in the heart, not in the burqa," she said.

Another woman, Torpaki, 28, recalled how she was forced to leave her job in a government ministry, even though she was a widow with four children to feed. "First we were told not to leave our homes. If we did, we would be lashed by the Taliban. On the street, in public."

"We were not used to the burqa, so we were always tripping," she said.

"I feel there were no human rights in Afghanistan," Torpaki said. "Women were not allowed to work or to be educated properly. We were not allowed to leave our house – that means we were in jail." After awaking to find the Taliban gone and the capital in the hands of the opposition Northern Alliance, she said, "now there are some rays of hope that there will be women's rights in this country."

While Kabul was rejoicing in its liberation, there was for many a sense of wariness about the Northern Alliance and its intentions. Many here remember the last time the same diverse group seized power in 1992, and how it led to a tumultuous period of factional infighting, instability and violence in the capital. It is an experience many here are anxious to avoid repeating.

"For the time being, I'm happy, but I'm afraid of 1992," said Abdul Sabor, a shopkeeper. "I still have that picture in my mind. . . . In '92, we were happy. The mujaheddin were good people. But they started looting and raping and having factions fighting with each other."

"Send a message all over the world – Afghanistan and especially Kabul needs an international peacekeeping force," said Temor Shah, 35, who works in the civil aviation department of the government. "Look," he said, pointing to a truckload of boisterous soldiers driving by in the back of a truck, shouting with their rifles thrust in the air. "We have all these different armed people all over the city."

For the most part, the Northern Alliance's entry was more orderly today than nine years ago when the same factions attained power after defeating the Soviet-installed Najibullah regime. Soldiers took up positions around government buildings, tanks moved into position at the presidential palace, and checkpoints were thrown up at intersections, where troops in camouflage uniforms searched cars.

A leaflet was distributed in the central marketplace, signed by a new "Kabul Security Commission," telling citizens that the Northern Alliance "with the grace of God has the honor to conquer Kabul city from the Taliban and the foreign invaders."

"The Northern Alliance is in Kabul to help you, to provide security to you," the leaflet reads. "There is no discrimination from the Northern Alliance in terms of language, color, tribe, nationality, or other reasons." It continues, "We urge all of you to resume your normal lives. If you are a shopkeeper, go to your shop. If you are a government worker, go to your office."

And perhaps to allay concerns here that Kabul's new rulers may seek reprisal against those who cooperated with the Taliban, the leaflet says, "Everybody is forgiven, Taliban or anyone else, as long as he doesn't resist the mujaheddin."

In the morning crowds in the streets cheered the truckloads of soldiers and shouted "thank you!" to foreign journalists. Later in the day, there were some signs of a return to normalcy. The marketplace came to life in the late afternoon. Traffic returned to city streets.

Crowds gathered in knots at several places around the city. Usually, they were looking at the mangled bodies of Pakistani and Arab fighters that were still lying uncovered in the late afternoon. At the Shar-e Naw park, seven bodies were strewn about on the grass and in ditches; they were Pakistani fighters, the bystanders said, who failed to get word of the Taliban retreat from Kabul and were left this morning to face the hostile crowd.

One was lying on his back beneath a basketball net, his black tennis shoes next to his chest; witnesses said he was firing an AK-47 from a tree when he was shot and killed. Another wore an olive green shirt, and his face was covered with spit as onlookers converged to vent their rage. Some of the young "volunteers" who were slaughtered here looked too young to shave.

"I was really scared to see dead bodies before," said Faisal Khan, 25. "But now I'm happy to see these Arabs."

There was, however, a festive mood that lingered long after the initial shock of the Taliban's sudden exit. Buses with passengers piled on the rooftop honked their horns and the passengers waved. As one truckload of soldiers passed a crowded street, bystanders erupted into a chant of "Death to the Taliban! Long live the Northern Alliance!"

Merajuddin, a 30-year-old taxi driver, set the volume on his car cassette to its highest, playing his favorite Afghan songs with the windows rolled down. He had kept the cassette hidden at home for five years, only listening to it at night, and with the volume down low, since the Taliban had banned music. In his taxi, the only cassettes he had listened to were the speeches of Islamic clerics.

The city itself shows the obvious scars of decades of civil strife – and the more recent signs of more than five weeks of bombardment by American warplanes. In the Macroroyn neighborhood, a gaping crater is evidence of an American bomb that went astray – it was aimed at a headquarters of the air defense division about 100 yards away, but instead hit near an apartment block, injuring three people including a small girl and damaging a water main.

Nearby, also in Macroroyn, another bomb aimed at an army radio communications facility fell wide of the mark and slammed into the wall of an apartment building, leaving a crater next to the building and collapsing a portion of one wall. Neighbors say a girl of about six-years-old was killed when she was hit by flying concrete while playing.

At Kabul's international airport, Haji Haroon, who today was put in charge of re-opening the facility, was busy inspecting the damage from American warplanes. Haroon had the job the last time the Northern Alliance factions ruled Afghanistan, from 1992 until 1996. He arrived here at noon from the Panjshir Valley, and allowed a reporter a tour.

"I promise, within 48 hours, we can make the airport operational," Haroon said. "Of course there has been some damage, but we can repair it." Two bombs hit the runway, but it did not appear severely damaged. The control tower was littered with debris from glass that had blown out. And on the left side of the airport, used by theugh an adjacent section used as a parking area and a kitchen had been looted and burned. The 702 unit of the Northern Alliance's national guard arrived in Kabul at 8 a.m. and quickly moved to secure the site. Col. Halibullah of the unit warned a reporter not to enter the abandoned embassy until his men first searched it to see if any remaining Taliban troops were inside.

"I don't believe I'm in Kabul," said Col. Shir Padcha, another of the soldiers guarding the embassy. "Sometimes I think I'm dreaming."

Returning to Kabul today was also like a dream for Abdul Naser, a young Northern Alliance soldier guarding the airport. He was caught here in 1996 when the Taliban took over, and spent 2½ years as a prisoner of war until being released in a prisoner swap with six others. Now, he said, "I'm very happy I chased the enemy out of my country's capital. Everybody knows these were international terrorists."

"These Taliban are dogs!" he said. Then he added, "I'm sorry I abused the dogs, because a dog is a very faithful animal." Taliban military, the remains of a MiG fighter jet, a transport plane, and two helicopters could be seen.

The old U.S. Embassy is still standing, altho

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001