Bombs Unnervingly Close
by Warren Coats
Issue 100 - January 30, 2008

Four suicide Taliban fighters attacked the Serena Hotel across the street from the central bank where I am working here in Kabul.

I had already returned to the IMF guest house about two miles away when the insurgents opened fire and set off two bombs. Several hotel guards are believed kills and several hotel guests injured. These are first reports and the information may change. The sky is filled with search and attack helicopters. For those of you who knew I was here, I just wanted to let you know that I am fine.

Here is what Time magazine said about it in their January 16, 2008 edition: “Last Monday, four militants, at least one of whom wore a police uniform, charged the Serena security gate. One detonated his explosive-packed vest at the entrance, and another threw a grenade into the baggage-screening room. A third attacker was fired on in the arrivals court, which appears to have detonated his suicide vest, while a gunman rampaged through the marble halls, spraying bullets until he reached his destination, the gym. Eight people died, including a Norwegian journalist, a Filipino spa employee and an American.”

I am nearing the end of this visit to Kabul. Over all it has been a depressing stay. A BearingPoint colleague (Thor Hesla, 45) was among those killed Monday in the Serena Hotel attack. He was working out in the gym there. While I work for the IMF here in Afghanistan, I work for BearingPoint in Iraq. I did not know Mr. Hesla, however. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/16/kabul.hesla

After my last note, my Swedish friend Einar du Ritz emailed me from Brussels that “my good neighbor, a Norwegian reporter, just called me and told me that it was his "little brother", or rather disciple, who got killed in Kabul” (Carsten Thomassen, 39). While these attacks are becoming more common where ever we have stuck our military noses into other peoples countries, this one has struck unnervingly close to me.

Our intelligence officer warned us that additional Taliban terrorists are here in the city looking for targets and we have not been allowed to visit any restaurants. The Taliban are seeking power, which requires an element of public support. They have thus generally targeted U.S. and NATO military forces. This was the case in late November when a car bomb exploded outside the IMF guesthouse where I am staying blowing out all of the windows and a few of the doors (since repaired). The target had been a passing military convoy. Internationals, who are generally welcomed here as agents of positive change, have not been Taliban targets in the past. We have entered a new era here.

Of greater concern, conversations with local Afghani’s suggest that the security situation continues to deteriorate. The poppy crop has doubled in the last two years and provides over 90 percent of the world’s supply of opium and heroin. It also provides important financing to the Taliban insurgents and other regional war lords, including President Karzi’s brother. No viable eradication/replacement program is in place or underway. The central government of President Karzai is very weak, ineffective and/or corrupt. The electrical power is off for hours every day. People do not see tangible evidence of progress, though there are some in class room hours, health facilities, highways, and a few other areas. The major concern is lawlessness. The “bad guys” that were around here five years ago are still around, some of them in government. A growing number of Afghani’s refer to conditions under the repressive Taliban regime as at least predictable and providing the law and order now missing.

Some of the brightest and most promising young Afghni professionals in the central bank are planning to leave because they have regularly been passed over by those with better tribal and/or political connections. The more I see of the world the more I appreciate the miracle of western liberalism, in which hard work and merit tend to be rewarded in the market place and thus encouraged.

I highly recommend that you see “The Kit Runner,” much of which was filmed here. It is a touching movie of the moving book and you can see what it looks like here. I also highly recommend “The Great Debaters.” Since my earlier note from here, I have learned that “The Kite Runner” has been banned here (the movie not the book) and that it was filmed in China (it fooled me). This is the world we are living in.

I also look forward to the end of the American Presidential primary contest and hope that the two parties’ candidates will finally begin a reasoned public debate over the key policy issues facing our country. I said this at the dinner table this evening and the other guest house dinners said that they had no idea that I was such an optimist.

Warren Coats is an international economic consultant.