Afghan Market City Turned Silent
By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press Writer
JALALABAD, Afghanistan - On the dark, eerily quiet road to Jalalabad, a lone white flag of Afghanistan's Taliban militia blew in the night breeze.
Beyond the giant black gate in the town of Torkham that marks the entry from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Taliban soldiers stood guard. Bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossed their chests.
Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Taliban militia, who control some 90 percent of Afghanistan, ordered all Western journalists out of the country. Since then, media have been restricted to the northern part of the country, which is controlled by anti-Taliban opposition forces.
But the Taliban relented on Saturday after a U.S. attack on the eastern village of Karam, just outside the eastern city of Jalalabad. Claiming as many as 200 civilians died in the Wednesday attack, the Taliban granted about 15 foreign journalists a two-day visa to visit the site under Taliban escort.
From the start of the journey, it was clear that security had been heightened since the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan began Oct. 7. After we crossed the border from Pakistan after sundown, a truckload of Taliban soldiers lugging rocket launchers crowded into the back of a pickup truck to lead our bus on the two-hour journey.
As we stopped at each of four checkpoints, the soldiers would approach and look inside to make sure everything was in order.
At Bhatti Kot, some 18 miles from Jalalabad, the convoy was stopped again by soldiers.
The soldiers need "the code," explained Mufti Yousuf, the representative of Taliban embassy in Pakistan and one of our escorts. The code was a password that would allow the convoy to proceed.
Taliban soldiers whispered into their hand-held radios. They were asking for the password that would allow us to enter Jalalabad. Without it, the soldiers had orders to open fire.
Taliban officials emphasized that the journalists' tour was very important while Afghanistan was under attack.
"America wants to take control of Afghanistan. We are under the cruel attacks of America," Atiq Ullah of the Taliban culture and information ministry said as he welcomed us to Jalalabad before dawn Sunday. "We will visit the places under the brutal American attack."
The capital of Nangarhar province, Jalalabad has taken a special pounding because it is believed bin Laden operates several terrorist training camps here. In 1996, when bin Laden came to Afghanistan from Sudan, he settled in Tora Bora in Nangarhar province.
The ongoing threat of attack and the fact of a nighttime curfew ensured that the 45-mile stretch of road from the border to Jalalabad was deserted except for turbaned Taliban soldiers at the checkpoints along the way.
At one checkpoint, an Afghan boy who looked barely 16 years old pointed his rocket launcher toward our bus _ not menacingly but in a boastful teen-age manner. We were allowed to proceed.
The road into Jalalabad weaves past the crumbling remains of a refugee camp. Beyond the camp, red steel pickets lined the road like sentries. The pickets warn of land mines that run along the perimeter of the Jalalabad airport _ which was dark and deserted.
The airport has been targeted by U.S. bombers but in the black of night, it was impossible to see what damage had been done.
Ordinarily Jalalabad is a bustling market city of 500,000. Its streets are lined with small stores, restaurants and carpet shops with their intricately woven red and black wares hanging in front.
As we entered the city, however, its streets were deserted because of the nighttime curfew and fears of attack. The only sound was the wailing of an ambulance speeding somewhere in the darkness.
At the Spin Ghar hotel, a fading 20-year-old two-story structure with a garden filled with red roses, bright pink and crimson bougainvillea and evergreens, Taliban troops gathered inside.
When a powerful explosion shook the windows, they laughed, danced and clapped their hands as television cameras zoomed in on them. Kalashnikov rifles hung by their sides.
Their jovial manner belied the grim reality of war. Back in Torkham, tea shop Mohammed Khanzada was more somber.
"It will be a slaughter," he said of the bombing campaign. "It has to stop."
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