"Ten Missiles And Only My Hen Was Killed"

THE hustle and bustle at the Zhavara training camps, about a mile from the border with Pakistan in Khost province of southern Afghanistan, made one feel as if this place has never experienced any missile attack. Curiously, an almost idyllic atmosphere seemed to prevail when this correspondent arrived on September 4 to survey the damage caused by the Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a US Navy ship sailing in the Arabian Sea on August 20. Over 200 Afghan children, with rosy cheeks and wearing warm Chitrali caps, and a few dozen young and old men were enjoying a lunch of rice and meat. The carefree manner in which the Afghans reacted to the US airstrikes on their camps was an indication of the fact that missiles and bombings held no terror for them and war for the Afghan people was now a way of life.

This was not the first time that the three camps in the Zhavara complex had been attacked. And it certainly won't be the last, given its strategic location and strong defences. The children at the camp were young Taliban belonging to the five villages that dot Zhavara's mountainous landscape. There was always a madrassa at the Salman Farsi camp in the Zhavara complex but it has now been expanded and formally made part of the education department of the Taliban-run Afghan government. In the past the mosque and madrassa were frequented by the Afghans, Pakistanis and Kashmiris who lived in the Zhavara camps. Now that all non-Afghans have left, only Afghan children from nearby villages and those staying at the hostel come to study at the madrassa.

Between 30 to 40 cruise missiles struck the Zhavara and Al-Badr camps in Khost on the night of August 20. The three camps at Zhavara—Salman Farsi, Khalid bin Waleed and Amir Mua'awiya—have escaped major damage. In fact, most of the buildings, training facilities and ammunition dumps at Zhavara are intact.

Zhavara survivors like Pir Ghaffar, an old man who lost one of his sons during the Afghan "jehad" against the Russian troops in the 1980s, made fun of the Tomahawk cruise missiles by claiming that 10 of them landed in his village and managed to kill only one of his hens. "We were under the impression that the cruise missiles are very accurate and destructive. We have now seen with our own eyes that they could neither hit their target nor cause much destruction," he said.

With his Russian-made AK-47 rifle slung across his shoulders, Pir Ghaffar defiantly shouted "death to America" slogans. Unlike him, there were many Afghans like tribesman Marwat Khan who thought the US had demonstrated its advanced missile technology by targeting the Khost camps from a distance of over 1,000 miles. "It means there is no place now that cannot be hit by the Americans. They couldn't kill Osama bin Laden and his close lieutenants but they still managed to hit their Al-Badr camp," he pointed out.

The Al-Badr, or the Arab camp as it is commonly known, received a dozen missile hits. In fact, it was the primary target of the US fury and suffered the most. But Saudi dissident bin Laden and his close aides weren't at the camp when it was attacked. According to Zarwali and Daulat Khan, two Afghan survivors of the missile strike, no meeting was scheduled that night and bin Laden himself wasn't even present in Khost province on August 20. They also disputed the American allegations that the Al-Badr camps were used for military and terrorist training.

At the three camps in the Al-Badr complex, which is three miles from Zhavara in the same range of mountains, about six buildings made of mud and stones were badly damaged. Three mosques were also hit and the Taliban and local villagers had to retrieve and clean copies of the Quran. In fact, some of the Taliban argued that the Americans deliberately targeted the mosques on account of their "hatred" for Islam. For them, it was a vindication of bin Laden's belief that it was incumbent on the Muslims to wage a "jehad" against the US and its client state Israel.

Qari Abdul Bari, who was given charge of the Zhavara and Al-Badr camps after the August 20 airstrikes, claimed that 21 people, including nine Pakistanis, six Arabs and six Afghans, were killed in the attack. Though the Harkat-ul Mujahideen, formerly known as Harkat-ul Ansar, said its nine members who were killed were all Pakistanis, it is possible that some of them were Kashmiris. Moreover, of the six Arabs killed, at least two were stated to be volunteers from Tajikistan. The six Afghans who lost their lives in the attack were all civilians and included three women, two children and an old man.

Both Qari Abdul Bari and Syed Abdullah, the Taliban governor of Khost, said the camps in Zhavara and Al-Badr would serve as a garrison. They said the Arabs, Pakistanis and Kashmiris staying there had been asked to leave. The governor added that they were shifted to safer places in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan. "We cannot order Osama bin Laden, who has been a mujahid and now needs our protection, to leave. Nor others who cannot return to their countries due to obvious reasons. No true Muslim could do such a thing," he stressed.