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Winter complicates Afghan campaign
11/03/2001
By KATHY GANNON KABUL, Afghanistan — The light dusting of snow that fell early Saturday on
the hills above Kabul heralds the advent of winter, adding to fears of a
humanitarian catastrophe for this beleaguered capital at war. The coming winter is already affecting American military operations in the
far north of the mountainous country. The Pentagon is blaming bad weather for
the crash landing of a U.S. special forces helicopter that injured four of its
crew, and for the loss of an unmanned spy plane. Snow falls in the high mountain passes also are hindering efforts by the
opposition northern alliance to resupply its units on the front north of Kabul.
Although winter comes later to Kabul, on Saturday cold northern winds were
already whistling through the warren of mud houses in a southern neighborhood
where 10-year-old Ferozana hugged her younger sister, Zainab, as they huddled
against the cold. The two girls, like most of Kabul's 1 million people, survive on
international assistance, which has continued — albeit at a much-reduced level —
despite the U.S. bombing campaign. Even before bombs began falling Oct. 7, Afghanistan faced a difficult winter.
More than two decades of civil conflict, international isolation and most
recently the worst drought in memory have left most of the 21 million Afghans
destitute. Politics and ideology have brought the situation to a crisis. After the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands of people in the United States, most
aid organizations evacuated their international staff, fearing both U.S. aid
raids and a hostile Taliban response. Those who stayed behind were expelled by the Taliban a week later. Since the
United States launched air strikes Oct. 7 to force the Taliban to hand over
Osama bin Laden — chief suspect in the September attacks — aid shipments are
down to a trickle. Before the crisis that emerged after Sept. 11, about 350,000 of the city's
poor gathered daily at dozens of bakeries run by the United Nations to be given
free bread. Recipients included many of the capital's estimated 25,000 widows, most of
whom have no steady income since the Taliban banned women from working except in
the health sector. After Sept. 11, the U.N. bakeries were closed because the world organization
considered the situation in Kabul too uncertain. Instead, the needy were given
supplies of flour every month to bake their own bread. However, the closing of the bakeries had another consequence. Under pressure
from the United Nations, the Taliban had relaxed its rules to allow some women
to work in the bakeries. Now these women have lost their jobs — with no chance
of finding another — and many joined the hordes of other women already reduced
to begging for their livelihood. Throughout the city, beggar women crouch beneath their all-enveloping burqas,
squatting beside rocket-rutted roads, pleading for food when a vehicle slows to
avoid craters. Outstretched hands slipping from beneath the burqa are all that
is seen of them. Life in this city is a struggle, even for those who do have some source of
regular income. Mohammed Amir trudges down a broken road clutching a package wrapped in a
colorful scarf. He's carrying several packages of cigarettes which he will sell
at his stall in the heart of Kabul's old city. Peddling cigarettes and other small items is the source of income for Amir,
his wife and their five children. His breakfast was sweet tea and a piece of
bread. There will be no lunch. Dinner will be ``shola,'' a mix of the cheapest
rice and beans. Amir explained he has no heat in his mud house. He will collect brush when he
returns home at night to burn for heat and light. At a privately run bakery not far way, 13-year-old Jawad starts his day at 4
a.m., working for 35 cents a day. With bare feet, his hands tucked under his
armpits for warmth, he says he's the breadwinner for his widowed mother and four
siblings. Saira, a widowed mother of five in a tattered blue burqa, shoves a few
thousand Afghanis at the baker for her five pieces of bread. ``Believe me last night all I had was a potato,'' she said. Her husband died
several years ago. She has five children. Her two sons hustle money by hauling
things for people in their wooden pushcart. Sometimes the boys, aged 14 and 16 years, lug heavy pieces of wood, sometimes
sacks of grain. For this, they earn less than $1 a day. Conditions outside Kabul are even worse. In Islamabad, Pakistan, Khaled Mansour, spokesman for the U.N. World Food
Program, said his organization has arranged to buy snow plows to keep some of
the mountain passes to the remotest regions of the country open. Villagers in the mountains that crisscross this country would be most at risk
should vital supply roads be blocked by snow, he said.
Associated Press Writer