- KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
- Gangs of Northern Alliance soldiers have unleashed a crime wave of looting
and killing in Kabul which is awakening nostalgia for the Taliban.
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- Lawlessness is creeping into daily life, after six years
of Taliban order, in the form of robberies, extortion and murder aimed
at the few Kabul residents with visible wealth.
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- Parts of the city have become no-go areas for taxi drivers
after a spate of abductions and roadside executions of their colleagues
by soldiers loyal to the new Afghan government.
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- Many of the fighters have not been paid since July and
admit they are hungry for spoils after last month's sweep into the capital.
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- The breakdown in discipline appears confined to a small
minority of the thousands of newly arrived troops and is nowhere near the
scale of banditry that ravaged Kabul when the mujahidin ruled from 1992
to 1996. But fear that crime will worsen has induced nostalgia for the
ruthlessly effective law-and-order policies of the Taliban, if not its
brand of Islamic fundamentalism.
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- Random interviews with Kabul residents suggest the looting
has deepened support for the proposed British-led multinational force.
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- "I would love it if foreign soldiers came. It is
not safe anymore. I am afraid to go to certain areas because of what the
Northern Alliance men are doing," said Wahid Aullah, 31, a taxi driver.
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- Colleagues echoed his observation that the Taliban had
tended to be disciplined and honest until their final days.
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- The Butkhak and Baysabaz districts had become out of
bounds for taxis in the wake of robberies by soldiers, who turned violent
after ordering drivers to remote locations, Aullah said. "Yesterday
my friend was beaten very badly and had his car stolen."
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- A driver known only as Rassoul was less lucky. Last week
shopkeepers in Taimaney district saw four soldiers getting into his car
at 2pm and asking to be taken to Sorobi, a stretch of desert on Jalalabad
road that is notorious for bandits.
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- The next day Rassoul's body was found in Sorobi with
four bullet wounds in the chest. His Toyota, worth about US$2,880, had
disappeared.
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- "We have not complained to the police. There is
no point because the people who killed him are government people,"
said Rassoul's cousin, Siar.
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- The shopkeepers claimed the soldiers responsible belonged
to the Northern Alliance faction of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a power broker
in the interim government. At least three other abductions and killings
have been reported.
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- Crimes were also allegedly committed by troops of the
Jamiat-i-Islami faction, the backbone of the Northern Alliance, which is
headed by General Mohammad Fahim, the defense minister.
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- A businessman who asked not to be named said he had been
visited at home by three soldiers who demanded he sign and apply a thumbprint
to a legal document declaring he owed them US$1,200. They set a two-week
deadline for the cash and visit every few days to remind him.
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- "I will have to sell my car by the weekend. It's
the only way," he said.
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- Such crimes pale beside the mass murders, rapes and kleptomania
which disgraced the Northern Alliance's previous incarnation as the mujahidin,
when rival warlords fought each other and opened the way for the Taliban
takeover. Memory of those days swells support for the proposed UN peacekeepers.
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- Morale among the alliance troops is low for a victorious
force. Mostly strangers to Kabul, they are housed in grim barracks and
subsist on meager rations.
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- Wages have not been paid in five months and what booty
was grabbed on the way to Kabul has been cashed in and spent, according
to several junior ranking troops.
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- Commanders said they might be paid a month's salary --
ranging from US$21 to US$36 -- in time for Id al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan,
which begins today. But for some that will not be enough.
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- "I have had to borrow money since coming to Kabul
and it'll take three months' salary to pay it off," said Joma Khan,
33, wandering through a market with a rifle over a shoulder.
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- "There's good food and clothes here but I can't
buy anything," Khan said.
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- A guard outside the culture ministry eyed passing barrows
of dried fruit and complained of not being able to afford sweets for Id
despite risking his life to expel the Taliban.
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- "It's not right," he said.
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