A grieving father in Kandahar
Posted: Friday, May 11, 2007 8:06 AM
By NBC News' Iqbal Ahmed in Kandahar, Afghanistan and Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer in Kabul, Afghanistan
"I expected NATO forces to apologize to me. They never came; no one ever came. They killed my son," said Akhtar, his voice faltering as he recounted the night of March 4 when his youngest son, Faiz, 25, was shot and killed by NATO troops on a well-traveled road in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
"A NATO convoy was parked alongside of the road with full headlights blinding the oncoming traffic," said Akhtar. "My son would not have known what to do, because he would have been blinded by the lights. Eyewitnesses told me the soldiers fired into his car, then took him from the car and shot him over and over again. His body had more than 30 bullet wounds from his head down to his legs. How can a father bear this?" asked Akhtar, who goes by one name as is common in Afghanistan, and whose eyes, by now, were brimming with tears.
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Akhtar plays with his grandaughter’s Frishta and Madina, the children of his son who was killed, inside his home in Kandahar.
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"When I told his mother she screamed, tore her clothes and then collapsed," said Akhtar.
Family scarred by decades of war
Akhtar, dressed in the traditional baggy trousers and long shirt, wore a black and grey striped turban, typical of Kandahar tribesmen. He thinks he is around 40 years old, but can’t be positive, he said. His dark furrowed skin, like the shell of a walnut, with a Santa white beard and snow -- white hair visible from underneath his turban, made him appear much older.
Faiz is the third son Akhtar has lost. The eldest was shot by the Soviets in 1980 during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His other son, two brothers and a nephew were killed during a bombing raid the same year. Akhtar wanted another son and Faiz was born in 1982.
Faiz owned a little food shop on Shahrinow Street, a main street in Kandahar. What he earned from selling biscuits, water, soft drinks and convenience items went to support his wife, two baby daughters and his aging parents. By any standards the family is poor and can barely scrape by. Faiz’s friend minds the shop now.
The family house is made from mud and wood. A triangular opening is cut out in the roof to let in shafts of light. There is no electricity. The room where we sat together was about nine feet long and 12 feet wide. It was sparsely furnished with traditional carpets on the floors and red and pink floral-patterned fabrics on the walls. The inside of the house smelt from the cows and goats that were kept in the small garden outside.
We sat together on the floor and drank tea as Akhtar’s granddaughters, Faiz’s children -- 2-year-old Madina, and 3-year-old Frishta, -- demanded their grandfather’s attention.
Kandahar is Afghanistan’s second largest city with a population somewhere around 500,000 inhabitants. Founded by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, it was an ancient trading center on the routes to India and the Middle East. The great armies throughout the millennia have invaded and conquered Kandahar.
Today Kandahar is better known as the spiritual center of the Taliban, the nerve center of the insurgents battling U.S. and NATO forces. Taliban leader Mullah Omar is from Kandahar -- so is Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai.
The drive from Kabul to Kandahar took seven hours. The road, built by the Americans, as part of the reconstruction and development efforts, is teeming with armed Taliban, bandits and warlords all up to no good. I made sure I drove at break-neck speed.
NATO says convoy signs are clear
After visiting Akhtar, I went to the NATO base in Kandahar to try and find out any information about Faiz.
NATO’s spokesman, Lt Col Stephan Grenier was not aware of the incident or of Faiz’s death..
"There are red signs on all vehicles that say ‘keep back, keep away, pull over to the side of the road and let the convoy pass,’" Grenier said. "Only if all those warning have been ignored, do we actually assume that the vehicle is a suicide vehicle and open up."
"What happens when someone can’t read the signs?" I asked. "After all, over 60 percent of Afghans are illiterate."
Grenier’s response was swift: "When you see ISAF (U.S. NATO and Afghan army) convoys, pull off the road, obey all signals and obey instantly."
But locals complain that at nighttime the lights on the military convoys are blinding, they get confused and don’t know what to do.
Question still unanswered: why?
The U.S., NATO and coalition forces have come under heavy criticism for the most recent surge in civilian casualties. Last week in Kabul, Karzai said the Afghan people can no longer tolerate such casualties. "It is becoming heavy for us; it is not understandable," said Karzai.
"Civilian casualties are a tragedy in any conflict, wherever, whenever" said William Wood, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. "In recent cases I can say with absolute certainty, the coalition has followed its rules of engagement and indeed where the coalition was carrying out operations as planned, there were not civilian casualties."
But for Akhtar there are still no answers on what happened to Faiz on the evening of March 4 or why.
