Another 16 French soldiers were injured, some seriously, in the incident in Kapisa province.

An official told the BBC that an Afghan non-commissioned officer got into a “verbal clash” and opened fire.

President Nicolas Sarkozy said France was suspending its training programs in Afghanistan following the attack.

Marco Werman talks with the BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. There was an incident today in Afghanistan that highlights a growing problem for US troops and their allies there. A soldier of the Afghan National Army opened fire on a group of French military trainers. Four French soldiers were killed and at least 16 more were injured. In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy reacted by saying French troops are not in Afghanistan to be shot at by their allies.

Nicolas Sarkozy: [Speaking French] We are the Afghan people’s friend and we are the Afghan people’s allies, but I can’t accept that Afghan soldiers could fire on French soldiers. If the security conditions are not clearly established then the question of an anticipated withdrawal of the French Army will be raised.

Werman: This is not the first time an Afghan soldier has fired on allied foreign troops. The BBC’s Bilal Sarwary is in Kabul. What’s known about this soldier, this Afghan soldier and his motives, Bilal, and the circumstances under which his attack on the French soldiers took place?

Bilal Sarwary: Well, we do know that he is a noncommissioned officer with the Afghan National Army, and that he had a verbal clash. Soon afterwards he fired at the French, killing 4 and injuring 17 others. The Afghan Minister of Defense here in Kabul has sent a delegation to find out more, but we do understand that the Afghan National Security Forces, the French soldiers serving with NATO, the International Security Assistance Force, were conducting a huge clearance operation in what is known as a volatile region.

Werman: This is not the first time this has happened where an Afghan soldier or policeman kills foreign troops inside Afghanistan. Do you know how many coalition troops have been killed by Afghan forces in this manner?

Sarwary: I don’t have an exact number, but I know enough to say that this is a very grave problem, one which has created deep mistrust between the Afghans and the international forces.

Werman: Any sense of why it’s happening now?

Sarwary: Well, it’s very difficult to say why, but I’ve followed the case of one Afghan rogue soldier who killed six US Special Forces. In this case he was recruited for 3-1/2 years by the Taliban. His uncles were leading the insurgency in that region, and the Afghan government totally failed in terms of counter intelligence to really understand that this was no more an Afghan border policeman, but a Taliban infiltrator. And it’s really difficult to have intelligence on people who come from areas where the Afghan government is simply not there. What is really ironic is that a lot of the Afghan National Army and police soldiers have Taliban hypnotic chants as their ringtones on their mobile phones…

Werman: Really.

Sarwary: including those serving on joint Afghan international bases I have come cross in the eastern province of Nangarhar, I saw it in Kandahar last week. If you listen to those hypnotic chants, if you listen to those Taliban songs with their music, they really prey on the most basic emotion of an Afghan. And a lot of those people who come to the Afghan Security Forces come from the country’s royal areas with no education and with areas where the Afghan government has never been there. The second big problem that seems to be there is the issue of cultural differences. For example, when I was in the eastern province of Nangarhar I went to an Afghan border police training center where the Americans were training the Afghans. And the problem there was that the Americans were absolutely disgusted in their own words, tired and frustrated that the Afghans were taking hours for their lunch, prayer and tea breaks. And according to the Americans the Afghans there were simply lazy, they were not working hard. Now, if you went to the Afghans in the same camp they would have told you the Americans are using the F-word, they’re not allowing us to pray, they’re not allowing us to eat, so both sides were involved in a tit for tat sort of war.

Werman: Well, thanks very much for the update. The BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul.

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The Marine officers named a lead investigative officer in the case Friday.

All four Marines seen in the video have now reportedly been identified.

US officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, are worried that anger over the incident could undermine the US military effort in Afghanistan.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Prof. Morris Davis of Howard University School of Law about the rules US service members are required to follow when it comes to enemy dead on the battlefield.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. The Pentagon is following through on its promise to quickly investigate that infamous video, the one of four marines apparently urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Today the Marine Corps officially named a lead investigative officer in the case, and all four marines seen in the video have now reportedly been identified. U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, are worried that anger over the incident could undermine the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. Fawzia Kofi, a member of the Afghan parliament is worried too.

Fawzia Kofi: Our deviated Taliban, and the utilities, and links to Taliban are looking for an excuse to use against intermission forces in Afghanistan. This could be good propaganda means.

Werman: A swift US investigation could help counter the negative image created by the incident. But, the Afghan government wants more than that. According to Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman, Janan Mosazai.

Janan Mosazai: Our expectation is that an economist will conduct a thorough investigation into this incident, and punish all of those soldiers found to have been part of this reprehensible crime, and that they will be punished accordingly.

Werman: So what sort of legal charges could the four Marines involved be facing? Morris Davis is a retired Air Force colonel. He served as chief prosecutor at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005 to 2007. He resigned from that post in 2008, and now teaches at Howard University School of Law. Colonel Davis, article 15 of the First Geneva Convention of 1864 prohibits the delivered mistreatment of a body on the battlefield. It appears that in this particular case in Afghanistan, the soldiers did not abide by the Geneva Convention. Would that be where the legal case starts?

Morris Davis: It could, but if you recall when we started the war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration said the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply. The Supreme Court disagreed in the Hamdan decisions, said Common Article 3 applies, but regardless, customary international humanitarian law recognizes that mistreating a corpse is prohibited.

Werman: And what are the guidelines for how you treat corpses in battle?
Davis: Well, there aren’t detail-specific guidelines other than the Geneva Conventions that talk about showing respect for the treatment of the dead body. I mean, there are certain things you would assume don’t need to be written down for most reasonable human beings to understand you don’t do, and certainly the behavior depicted in the video falls well below that standard.

Werman: This is not the first time we’ve heard of such an instance in Afghanistan; it also happened in Iraq. I’m also reminded of stories of American soldiers in Vietnam taking body parts as souvenirs. Can you help us understand how the generally accepted rules of war can fall by the wayside on the battlefield when it comes to the dead?

Davis: Some people have a hard time grasping that there are rules that apply to war. I mean, I think some people assume that if the situation reached a point where war is broken out, then it’s “anything goes”. And that’s one of the arguments that you hear now, is “look at how the Taliban behaves”. But, we don’t gage our conduct by the conduct of our adversaries. And there are certainly, as you mentioned, exceptions from Iraq and from Vietnam, and from World War II. But that doesn’t change the fact of the matter, that we pride ourselves, the military, for our professionalism and living up to a higher standard than our adversaries.

Werman: How psychically difficult do you think it is to treat the dead with respect when you’re in the midst of war and there’s bullets flying all over? Is it too much to ask of troops?

Davis: I don’t think it is; I mean, I think it’s basic human dignity not to mistreat the dead. I mean, the law of war permits conduct that in normal circumstances would not be permitted, for instance, killing. But, once the enemy is no longer capable of fighting, whether they’re sick, wounded, captured or killed, then you lose the right to do things that you ordinarily couldn’t do. And certainly, in this video, if it is what it appears to be, then our soldiers, their conduct fell below the standards that are acceptable.

Werman: Colonel Davis, when the rules of war are not followed, where do you place the blame? On the troops themselves or is this a leadership problem?

Davis: I think accountability and responsibility should be throughout the process. I mean, certainly there’s no excusing what’s depicted in the video. So that’s kind of the bottom of the pyramid, but at the top of the pyramid, when we started out this war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration said the Geneva Conventions were quaint and didn’t apply. Basically, “take your gloves off and anything goes”. So, there should be some accountability at the top too for creating this atmosphere that allows this kind of behavior to occur. I mean, it’s certainly a lack of leadership to create an environment where any troop would think that this behavior is acceptable for a member of the U.S. armed forces.

Werman: It sounds like you take it back to that statement from the Bush administration that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply. Do you think that things started there?

Davis: Without a doubt in my mind. You know, America for 200 years, we viewed ourselves as the city on the hill that others should emulate and live up to. We still serve as an example, but often we serve as a bad example, not a good one. So, I think in this instance, the Pentagon is taking it seriously; I think the people will be held accountable, and hopefully this kind of behavior will continue to be the very rare exception and not the rule.
Werman: Retired Air Force Colonel Morris Davis recently served as executive director at the Crimes of War Education Project in Washington, D.C., where he worked to enhance global public awareness of international humanitarian law, and to highlight violations of the laws of war. He’s currently teaching at Howard University School of Law. Colonel Davis, thank you very much for your point of view.

Davis: Thank you.

A statement confirmed the move, which has been backed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Marco Werman talks to David Roberts of the Royal United Services Institute in Qatar about the proposed Taliban office.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. Afghanistan today officially welcomed peace talks between the United States and the Taliban. It also welcomed the proposed opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf Emirate of Qatar. US and Afghan officials hope the new office will help hasten the end of the war in Afghanistan. Officials in Qatar lead by the country’s monarch may be relishing the fact that they get to play the role of matchmaker in any deal. Qatar, which is home to the Al Jazeera news network has worked hard to increase its influence in the region. David Roberts is with the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. He’s based in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Roberts says the opening of a Taliban office there makes a certain amount of sense.

David Roberts: Qatar has been involved for a little while now with America and Germany specifically, to try to I suppose engineer some kind of a resolution to some degree. And to be perfectly honest it makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that this has happened here. Qatar has a quite long and illustrious history in recent years of trying to help with mediating in various conflicts.

Werman: Well, we’ll get to that in recent history, but as far as the Taliban, what does it mean to have an office in Qatar? I mean in my mind I see Taliban headquarters on the door of the office. What kind of physical profile will this office actually have?

Roberts: Yeah, indeed, I’m curious about that myself. I confess I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does to be perfectly honest. A lot of the way things work in Qatar are pretty ad hoc, no one knows specifically what the form will be. But in terms of the use of the office, I mean if we look at a couple of recent attempts to get some kind of negotiation going in Afghanistan, in September last year an Afghan government mediator was assassinated because he couldn’t find the right Taliban person to speak to. And the year before the American was fined several hundred thousands dollars for pretty much the same reason. So with the office here it’ll provide a bona fide represents to the Taliban, which it’s a very small step, but a crucial one.

Werman: As you say David, I mean this is the latest of several efforts by Qatar. It’s made efforts to try and broker deals in Syria, and Darfur and Sudan, on and off in Yemen. It sent four of its Mirage jets to the no-fly zone over Libya. Now this business with the Taliban. Why is Qatar stepping forward internationally?

Roberts: To some degree it’s because it can. It’s a very small state. It’s a threat to no one. It’s completely secured by America, it has two huge bases here, so it’s sort of intrinsically able to do this. The last point on that idea is obviously it’s a very small place as I say; if the mayor or the prime minister who’s very emboldened here, if they have an idea that they want to push forward no one in the bureaucracy will stop them at all. So it’s quite personalized in that way. And in recent years the elite have obviously had this desire to mediate in conflicts around the region. And if I could just mention Qatar and Darfur, they’ve been involved there for many years now to affect some kind of a resolution there. So why they’re doing this, yes, I think we can mention some altruistic reasons perhaps, but let’s not forget that Sudan is the bread basket of Africa as it’s known. Qatar is a very food insecure country. And obviously with all these years of negotiations they’ve built up a huge amount of goodwill in the country, not to mention a huge raft of contacts. So in that specific example we can see other reasons afoot shall we say. And you know, we can’t go through all the examples, but there are always multiple reasons essentially for this.

Werman: David Roberts, the deputy director of the Qatar office of the Royal United Services Institute. He joined us from the capital, Doha. Thank you very much indeed.

Roberts: Thank you.

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The officials blamed the Taliban, who they said had accused the women of “moral deviation and adultery”.

The police said two men had been arrested in connection with the murder.

The attack was only 300m from the governor’s office in Ghazni city, which is on a list of places to be transferred to Afghan security control.

The incident happened on Thursday in the Khawaja Hakim area of Ghazni city, where the family lived.

Marco Werman talks with the BBC’s Orla Guerin in Kabul, Afghanistan, about reports that a woman and her daughter were stoned and then shot to death Thursday by the Taliban in the city of Ghazni.

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Marco Werman: I am Marco Werman. This is The World. Ten years of war in Afghanistan have changed many things especially for women there. The Taliban who were ousted from power a decade ago were known for their brutal treatment of women who defied their strict rules. Improving the lives of Afghan women and girls was an often sided objective when the war started in 2001. So, it’s disheartening to hear this news from Afghanistan a decade later. A woman and her daughter were stoned and then shot dead by the Taliban in the central city of Ghazni. The BBC’s Orla Guerin is in Kabul and has the details.

Orla Guerin: At about 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, local time on Thursday morning, local sources say that armed Taliban entered the home of this young widow and her daughter. The women were accused of adultery. They were dragged into the yard in front of their house bordering the street. Initially, they were stoned and subsequently they were shot to death. Now that information is coming to us from relatives and from medical sources who have seen the bodies. This attack took place just 300 meters from the office of the Police Chief and from adjoining offices of the Governor, and also of Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency. It’s an indication of how easy it is for the Taliban to strike in this city, and this is a city which is due to be handed back from NATO to Afghan control. But very clearly, the Afghan government is struggling to establish its authority there.

Werman: Why is it believed that it was the Taliban that carried this out and not some other extremist group?

Guerin: Well, Afghan intelligence sources are telling us it was a Taliban attack. There are Taliban fighters roaming freely on the edge of Ghazni city, and the Taliban have a very visible presence. There are Taliban songs playing on some of the local radio stations. The Taliban have their own shadow governor for the province; they have shadow judges. They control the main roads in Ghazni province. They impose taxes. They threaten girls who go to school. This is a province of 18 districts. We believe that only 7 of those districts are in government control.

Werman: It’s a shocking murder, more so that it was done by stoning. How frequent though are these kinds of killings of women these days, especially in such a manner that evokes the rule of the Taliban pre-2001 in Afghanistan?

Guerin: Well, we hear of these cases and some of them come to light, not all of them. In this instance, although the women were initially stoned, we understand from medical sources that they died as a result of gunshot wounds. There was another case relatively recently which caused a great deal of shock and distress here in Afghanistan. That was a young couple who, if fact, were stoned to death last August in Kunduz province. But, video footage and mobile phone footage of those killings came to light only in January, and were particularly gruesome and particularly distressing. A woman was, in that instance, also stoned but survived the stoning, survived 2 minutes of a violent attack of stoning and she was also shot by the Taliban at the end.

Werman: It’s just shocking that 10 years after the occupation of Afghanistan this is still going on.

Guerin: It’s still going on and it’s one of the great concerns for Afghan women activists because now, in the preparation for the exit of foreign forces and also in the attempts to reach a peace deal with the insurgents, they feel that whatever little fragile progress has been achieved here in the last 10 years that that could be rolled back. Women’s activists here will tell you that they feel the clock is ticking. Many of those women now figure that they are targets. One said to me recently that it’s something they joke about between themselves, that they may be hung when the Taliban come back. She said they have to make it a joke because the fear is so real. And the complaint you also hear from these women is that the Afghan government is not giving them adequate representation. They are still struggling to be adequately represented at the Bonn conference in Germany at which so much about the future of Afghanistan will be decided.

Werman: I mean, so many people are talking about the Taliban being a part of some kind of negotiation in the future. An incident like this just doesn’t seem like Afghan women, even being at the table, will mean that much.

Guerin: Well, it appears inevitable that the Taliban will be part of some kind of power-sharing formula here. Nobody is sure of when that arrangement will come into being or how long it’s going to take. But it’s certainly very clear that the Taliban cannot be cut out of the picture; that they are in control, as we speak, of significant parts of this country and in those areas, life for women today is very similar to the life they enjoyed 10 years ago. They can’t leave their homes, they can’t educate their daughters, they can’t work for a living and they dare not be seen outside without a male relative. So, there are parts of the country in which that has never changed. And people here who lived under the old Taliban regime and who remember it say they still have the nightmares and they have the fears that, in some form, it will return.

Werman: The BBC’s Orla Guerin speaking with us from Kabul. Thanks so much.

Guerin: No problem.

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Hers is a life story that in many ways mirrors the history of Afghanistan over the last three decades. Now she is embracing a new dream for herself and her country. Koofi wants to become the next president.

Koofi’s story, the story of a life lived on the edge of death in Afghanistan, begins with a letter written to her two daughters.

Dear Shurha and Shahrazad,

Today, I am going on political business to Faizabad and Darwaz. I hope I will come back soon and see you again but I have to tell you I may not. There have been threats to kill me on this trip. Maybe this time these people will be successful.

Koofi’s letter is included in her new memoir. The words are touching, intimate and frightening. It reflects the threats, assassination attempts and danger she has faced throughout her life, most recently from Taliban fighters.

Koofi and her daughters live in a house just off a busy road in Kabul that is choked with traffic day and night.

Koofi with her daughters; Shuhra on the left and Shaharazad on the right. (Photo: Laura Lynch)

It is a tense time in Kabul. A senior politician was recently assassinated and when Koofi greeted me, she looked visibly fatigued. She shared a dream she had the night before.

“I couldn’t sleep the whole night and I had different kinds of dreams,” she said. “I believe in dreams. So I dreamed that I could not see. I’m struggling to see.”

Struggling could be a word that defines Koofi’s existence.

As a newborn, the 19th of 23 children in the household, her mother left her out in the sun to die.

Koofi survived that and the trials and violence that followed. In the rugged terrain of the northern province where she grew up, she watched her father beat her mother.

She knew from an early age that politics was a dangerous game.

Her father, a member of the Soviet backed parliament was killed by mujahedeen warriors before she turned four. She also lost her husband and two brothers through the years of conflict.

Now, she has become her father’s political heir.

Another excerpt from the letter

For me, now what I say that if you want to really stick to your values and don’t change on a daily basis, don’t become a political game player you have to pay a price. It means if I want to continue with what I am doing now, I need to see the sacrifice is there in one minute time, in hundred days time, I don’t know.. But it is there, I have to keep that in mind.

At a committee meeting inside the heavily fortified parliamentary compound, Koofi’s political skills were on display.

The justice minister arrived for questioning about the condition of women’s prisons, taking his place at the far end of a long conference table. As chairwoman, Koofi dominated the hearing, almost lecturing the minister. She controlled the questioning by handing other committee members written questions she wanted them to ask.

After half-an-hour the minister began banging the table with his hand, defending his attempts to overhaul prisons despite the country’s security challenges.

It is a bit of political theatre, one provoked by Koofi’s interrogation.

Koofi chairing a committee at the Afghan Parliament buildings in Kabul. (Photo: Laura Lynch)

Women’s rights activist Selay Ghaffar believes MPs, women included, are selfish when they should be selfless – it’s all about me, me, me, she said.

“All the topics of discussion in the parliament is to increase their salary to increase to give the number of bodyguards they have, to give them bulletproof cars, to give them better expense accounts, pocket money,” Ghaffar said. “This is what I am always hearing from our MPs. They are thinking of themselves, rather than what they need to do for their people.”

Koofi bristled at the accusation, saying she does not even own her own home. Displaying a flash of impatience herself, Koofi puts it down to the electorate’s inexperience.

“They expect you to get a passport for them, to get an Iranian or Pakistani visa for them. A job, a school or divorce from their husband. A high position job for their husbands or for themselves, if they are men. If they are police officers in Helmand they want to be shifted to Mazar because it’s more secure. You name it. They want you to help them financially for their marriage. Everything. It’s just such high expectations,” Koofi said.

The expectations seem even higher for a woman aspiring to the presidency, especially a woman who is raising her children alone. In fact, Koofi’s concern for her children could be the only thing that might hold her back..

“This is the only thing that makes me worry sometimes. What happens to my daughters because they don’t have a father as well. Let’s see if God wants me to be the mother of my daughters with all the things I want to do, I will. Otherwise, they will find their way,” she said. “I was three years old when my father was killed. I was 18-years-old when my mother died. We found our way. So my daughters will find their way as well.”

As far as the children are concerned, their mother’s ambitions are cause for both pride and worry.

Twelve-year-old Shaharazad spends time almost everyday working on her mother’s Facebook campaign page. Eleven-year-old Shuhra supports her mother’s political aspirations and admits she too would like to be president of Afghanistan one day.

Though they lost their father at a young age, they have enjoyed lives of relative peace and privilege. Still, it is easy for Shahrazad to summon the memory of the day her mother left that letter.

Koofi sits beneath a picture that shows her with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. (Photo: Laura Lynch)

In many ways, Koofi embodies the Afghan experience of the last decade, of the ways the country has and hasn’t changed.

She plans to run for president, but sometimes still wears the head to toe burka she hates for disguise and protection. Her life is under threat, but she says she worries more about rumors (some have suggested, wrongly, that she goes bare headed outside the country ) that could harm her reputation.

The life Koofi wants for her country, for her daughters, still seems a distant dream.

Another excerpt from the letter

Be brave, don’t be afraid of anything in life. All of us human beings will die one day. Maybe today is the day I will die. But if I do, please know it was for a purpose. Don’t die without achieving something. Take pride in trying to help people and in trying to make our country and our world a better place. I kiss you both. I love you both. Your mother.

Tzemach Lemmon has written about the lives of Afghan women both under Taliban rule, and post-Taliban rule.

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Marco Werman: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was notorious for its repression of women. Since the US-lead invasion 10 years ago the restoration of women’s rights have been a key goal in Afghanistan. It’s also seen as key to whether a viable democracy will be able to take hold there. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon has written about the lives of Afghanistan’s women both before and after Taliban rule. Her book, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana tells the story of one woman who not only manages to survive under the Taliban, she also manages to create a business for herself and other women. The author says that for women under the Taliban the main imperative was survival.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: When I started interviewing women who worked during the Taliban years what I saw over and over again was that these women had decided that their families were either going to eat or not going to eat, and that it was up to them to find a way to support them. And so you had women who were selling fruits and vegetables from their house, women who were making burkas, women who were actually teaching other women Microsoft Office in a women’s hospital, women who staffed up because they absolutely knew their families would not be supported otherwise.

Werman: What about the women you focused on in your book, the Dressmaker of Khair Khana, what was life like for them and what’s changed post 2001?

Lemmon: I first met Kamila Sidiqi who’s the protagonist of The Dressmaker in 2005 when I was there writing a Financial Times piece. And I asked her about this new business she was starting and I said so how did you decide to go into business? She said oh, well, actually this is my third business; the first one I started under the Taliban and it was an enormous success and that was actually what made me an entrepreneur. And that was for me as a reporter, I’m sure you understand this, a real Eureka moment because…

Werman: Right, it’s surprising to hear that.

Lemmon: Absolutely, because we are so used to seeing women as victims of war to be pitied, that we almost overlook stories about how they make the absolute difference when it comes to survival during incredibly difficult times. And here were girls who had managed to become breadwinners during years when they were banned from their own streets. And I think in the end you see in the story of The Dressmaker, there were women all around Kamila’s neighborhood who were desperate for work, who would just knock on the door and say my sister’s cousin’s friend tells me you have a job, can you please give me work? Because the economic story of the Taliban is one people often forget, that people could not feed their families. And so a business like this, the dressmaking business, really constituted the difference between survival and starvation for a lot of families.

Werman: 10 years ago women’s rights was something the US was pushing as being very crucial to the future of Afghanistan, people like Hillary Clinton said that treating women better in Afghanistan would be a harbinger of a more peaceful, prosperous and democratic future for that country. Has the promise of focusing on women’s rights been made good on?

Lemmon: Women themselves I think have been making good on that promise, but the international community which spoke a great deal about women’s rights on the way in is fairly quiet about it now, particularly in the US. And Hillary Clinton is doing a great deal to try to keep the issue on the agenda in terms of bringing it up often, and she has promised women that they will not be abandoned. But what is going to happen come 2014 I think remains a very open question. And I do think it’s very interesting that women were talked about a great deal at the start and almost no one wants to talk about them now that they’re trying to finish the war.

Werman: Is it simply because there’s a war and a deadline that women’s rights are no longer a priority?

Lemmon: Absolutely, I think that the domestic constituencies and the fact that this war has now become America’s longest ever means that this administration wants an end to the war. And I think women have become secondary, and so what you see now is women leaders, women community activists saying come on, we want to be heard. And I think you see women and I interview them all the time who say we are not collateral damage, we are contributors.

Werman: Right, now the pressure is mounting for the US to get out of Afghanistan and there’s more and more talk that any political solution there will involve the Taliban. What does all this mean for whatever progress has been made for women’s rights in the last decade?

Lemmon: It is an open question. Whatever happens the Taliban era that I talk about in the book is an example of this, women will find a way. Women will not be silent I think in whatever comes next. But will the international community support their effort to make a country that’s more stable, because countries are more stable when women have a role, and a voice and a seat at the table. And so the question is will whatever comes next in Afghanistan include a Taliban agreement to respect the Afghan constitution that does give women opportunity to go to work and go to school, which is what women are asking for. And I do not know the answer to that and I do not think that anybody in the international community can give you a good answer as to how serious they are about really holding sacred that idea that women must be a part of their own country. And it’s really amazing when you think that women are both half the population and relegated to a special interest group when it comes to having a say in their own nation.

Werman: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is the author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe. She’s also deputy director of the Council on Foreign Relations, Women and Foreign Policy Program. Gayle, thanks very much for speaking with us.

Lemmon: Thank you for having me.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Instead, President Obama issued a written statement.

One line in that statement said that in Afghanistan the United States has shown itself to be a “partner with those who seek justice, dignity and opportunity.”

And one focus of that partnership is Afghanistan’s shattered justice system.

Restoring people’s faith in the rule of law is seen as key to diminishing Afghan support for the Taliban.

So millions of dollars have been spent on training lawyers and judges, and on building courthouses.

But many Afghans still shun the courts in favor of traditional methods that critics say do an injustice to girls and women.

Examples of Afghan Justice

I am being taken to a secret shelter in the capital. A shelter for girls and women who fear for their lives.

Inside this refuge, they learn how to make clothes and crafts, how to read and write and how to survive. They also try to forget the past.

One teenager has been here just a few months. She is pale, and her clothes hang loose on her thin frame. She speaks quietly as she recounts a terrible tale.

“My uncle ran off with a woman,” the girl said. So eight girls and I – sisters and cousins – were given as compensation to the other family. My cousin and I were the youngest. She was 3 and I was 5 years old. We had a really hard life, they beat us, and stopped us from leaving the house. I tried to kill myself several times, taking pills and drinking acid.”

Eventually, she said, she decided to escape and she did it in dramatic fashion.

“I wore men’s clothes and changed my hair. I decided to live like a boy on the streets and in the mosque,” she said. “Then one day, a woman found out who I really was and took me to the ministry of women affairs.

A ministry official brought her to the safety of the shelter.

The case highlights one of Afghanistan’s most ancient rituals for settling disputes. And while it violates Afghan law, it is still happening today. It’s called baad.

Nader Nadery is with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. He said that local jirgas, or councils sometimes settle disputes by simply giving girls and women away as payment for some wrongdoing. While Nadery doesn’t like it, he understands why it’s still happening.

“In absence of functioning formal justice system, especially in the last 20-25 years,” Nadery said, “people had to find another way of settling their disputes and finding remedies and that was those traditional mechanisms of elders or different figures sitting together and making and issuing a resolution and settling some disputes most often settled by giving another victim.”

Little Refuge in Kabul Courthouses

In the hallway outside the family court in Kabul, it is a chaotic scene. This is one example of the efforts of the government and its allies to rebuild and reform the justice system. It is a system that was undermined and politicized by the Soviets and the mujahadeen, then torn apart by the Taliban.

At the registry, men and women dump documents onto the desks of harried clerks, waiting for a chance to go before a judge. One couple is led into Chief Justice Rahima Rasai’s courtroom. It looks more like a living room with its comfortable sofas and chairs.

The husband opens the hearing by reading a statement claiming that the marriage was happy until his wife started to behave strangely. Then is the wife’s turn. She becomes more agitated as she speaks, suddenly removing her headscarf and pulling her hair back, trying to prove that her husband beat her.

“See my head, can you see my injuries?” she asked.

“Be quiet, be quiet,” Justice Rasai commanded. “Next time, bring a document from the hospital where you went for treatment to prove your injuries.”

As the two started to bicker, Justice Rasai grew impatient. With no gavel, she banged her desk with her hand to try to bring some order to the court. They both sate quietly as she lectured them.

“As I’ve said plenty of times to both of you,” Justice Rasai thundered, “I really don’t care as much about you, I am really worried about your children and their future”

They are told to come back in 15 days with witnesses and documents.

Afghanistan’s Hybrid Justice

After the session ends, Rasai admits many of the cases that come before her are not settled by her at all. She steers disputes toward so-called jirgas, but she keeps the court involved, insisting the jirgas keep a record and report back to the judge.

It is a hybrid model that she said ensures at least some court influence in a country where many simply do not want to use the official justice system. The reasons range from corruption to inefficiency to shame at making their problems public.

There are only six family courts in all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. This one serves a population of nearly five million people. Yet Rasai confirms there are only 350 cases filed in her courts each year.

Nader Nadery of the human rights commission said after a decade, Afghanistan is less than a third of the way to establishing a strong, independent effective system. He said the blame for that is shared by all those who seized power from the Taliban a decade ago.

“It was one of the biggest failures of both the Afghan government and its international partners to not recognize the importance of good governance, rule of law and justice,” Nadery said. “It could be a much more effective tool to deal with the insurgency also and build support among the population.”

It was never going to be easy to overhaul the justice system in a country so broken by war.

Even the formal court process has been stubbornly resistant to change in a country where harmful traditions are so deeply entrenched and that has led to arrests and convictions that Americans would find astonishing.

Jailed for “Bad Character”

Behind a locked gate and the high, secure fences sits Kabul’s only prison for women. The setting is almost pastoral, sitting near an orchard of almond trees.

This isn’t just a women’s prison though. Their children stay here with them, as they inmates serve their sentences. Many of the 120 or so women here have been jailed for drug-related offences and violent crimes, but here, real criminals live side by side with those who are in reality victims of justice.

They have been found guilty of offences not even recognized in law; in essence the offence of bad character. Twenty- year old Sohaila twists her black and silver headscarf around her fingers as she recalls how she ended up in jail.

She said she was five years old when her when her brother ran off with another man’s daughter. Sohaila said the man, a local warlord, came seeking revenge.

“My father was really scared of him. When he attacked our house, my father and I were both injured,” Sohaila said. “Three bullets hit my father’s hand and he’s disabled now. I was injured too and they burned down our house all because my brother ran off with the man’s daughter.”

Sohaila said her father settled the dispute by giving her away as compensation in a “baad.” As she grew older, she feared being forced to marry a man who was already a grandfather with two other wives. So at sixteen, she ran away with her cousin, married him and tried to disappear in Kabul. Two years ago, her father found her and turned her in to the police.

“My father claimed my husband kidnapped me,” Sohaila said. “During the court hearing he denied that he had given me away to the old man in a ‘baad.’ The judge put me in jail for two years and my husband for ten years.”

Sohaila’s baby son nestles in her arms as she recounts a chilling conversation she recently had with her father.

“I am having a really hard time here now. I have a son by my husband but my father said if I want to come home again, I have to kill my son first. “

Even the warden, Aneesa Descadezodah, tells me she does not want women like Sohaila serving time.

A paper published by NATO last year suggests would take at least two decades to reform the court system, and instill respect for the rule of law.

Nader Nadery isn’t optimistic.

“It’s not yet late but we have missed very very good opportunities in the last ten years and still I do not see a political will in both the Afghan government and the international community to engage seriously in one of the failures of the early time of the engagement,” Nadery said.

In the meantime, the country’s most vulnerable citizens are punished for crimes that don’t exist on the books, while druglords, insurgents and those tainted by corruption remain free.

For Afghans who have already had to wait too long for justice, it’s not easy to have faith in the future.

"Ready for rent" (Photo: Laura Lynch)

Behind the security gates lie the secrets to living safely and living well in Afghanistan. I’ve come for a tour of a house, a mansion really, that is sitting empty.

“And it’s ready for rent and everything is clean and clear and recently painted,” said Mohammed Daoud Rahimi, the real estate agent. He eagerly showed the features of the five story, seven bedroom home.

“It has the central heater and also the cooling system.” The main salon also has a series of crystal chandeliers.

There is a jacuzzi tub downstairs and rows of roomy closets.

The influx of cash that accompanied foreign aid agencies, diplomats and private security firms led to a big building boom in Afghanistan, especially in the cities.

In 2009 alone, house prices jumped 75 percent, but it seems the good times may be coming to an end. Rahimi has 15 vacant houses on the market.

“For example, before the rent on this house was about $ 14,000 per month and this season it’s available for $9,000,” Rahimi said.

A conference focused on rebuilding Kabul was held in the splendor of the spectacular Babur Gardens southwest of the old city last week. It seemed a world away from the bleak reality of life for most Afghans. But it was where the mayor of Kabul was seeking fresh ideas and money to salvage his city.

Kabul Mayor Muhammad Younus Nawandish (Photo: Laura Lynch)

“All these houses you can see, this is illegal. 70 percent of the houses are unplanned and most of them are illegally. Because this is a big challenge for Kabul municipality,” he said.

It is an enormous challenge, caused partly by rising house prices and partly by the rising population. Kabul has grown from 1.5 million to 5 million residents over the last several years without any formal planning, as frightened Afghans piled into the city from rural areas. As rents climbed, people simply moved further out and built wherever they could.

Nawandish is keenly aware of the problems facing the community and also of the city’s dependence on foreign money to keep it going.

“This is very important for Kabul and Kabul economy to have the assistance of the international community. Now we have assistance from the World Bank, the United States, Turkish government, Japanese government, United Arab Emirates and other countries.”

It adds up to billions of dollars. The United States alone spends about $320 million a month in non-military aid across the country. Plucking grapes from a plate in front of him, Nawandish laments the end of such largesse, even as he promises he will find another way.

“Unfortunately, I became the mayor of the Kabul in the end of this big assistance. I am not happy to lose this big assistance. But it is the politics, if they want to leave we do not have another option. But we are working on another form of the income of the Kabul municipality. I am sure we will increase the income.”

Income may well mean higher taxes on residents and businesses in one of the few places in Afghanistan where it is safe enough to even try to collect them and that makes life even harder for local businesses.

Hajji Hameed (Photo: Laura Lynch)

Meant to cater to the tastes of foreigners living in the city, the store also attracted locals with three floors of food, clothes and hardware, but Hameed has watched business slide.

“The main problem here is security, the security situation is very bad,” said Hameed. “We do not have customers for months if there’s a bombing in Kabul.”

For him, it is all made worse by the rising costs that accompanied the foreign community driven boom of the last decade.

“The rent has gone up a lot recently even though the economy and the security situation is getting worse every day. In order to pay the rent, taxes and utility bills, I’ve had to get a loan and spend my savings.”

Add to that the unique and dramatic problems facing entrepreneurs here. Hameed has done well over the years, opening other stores, buying property. That made him a target. Two years ago, he was kidnapped.

The men who grabbed him one night as he made his way home from work demanded the equivalent of $700,000.

“I sold two houses and I borrowed $200,000 from the bank. I was held for 19 days and nights and they only released me after they received the ransom,” says Hameed.

Now, he has hired bodyguards to protect him and he closes the store early. He says it all makes it harder to pay back his growing debts. Hameed’s difficulties highlight the critical link between security and the economy – and the need for both to ensure Afghanistan’s future.

The only other viable parts of Afghanistan’s economy are illicit – drugs and smuggling. Earlier this year, the US Senate Foreign Relations committee warned that the country could suffer a severe economic depression when the majority of foreign troops leave in 2014.

That worries many Afghans who have never been able to build a sustainable economy and a peaceful existence.

His shop sells stationery but the shopkeeper saw an opportunity in the many anti-Western demonstrations that take place across Pakistan.

He supplies US and Israeli flags for the protesters to burn. Nasir Hassan wrote about this shop owner in Rawalpindi, in an article for Pakistan’s Express Tribune.

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Marco Werman: One store owner in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi knows all about adapting to uncertain economic conditions. His shop sells stationery but the shopkeeper saw an opportunity in the many anti-Western demonstrations that take place across Pakistan. He supplies US and Israeli flags for the protesters to burn. Nadir Hassan wrote about this shop owner in Rawalpindi, in an article for Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper. Mr. Hassan is in Islamabad right now. Are these flags any different from other flags? Are they more flammable [laughs]? Or is it simply that the flags sold are of nationalities that inspire rage in Pakistan?

Nadir Hassan: No, the flags themselves aren’t more flammable. It’s just certain countries are considered more flammable in Pakistan [laughs].

Werman: [Laughs] Figuratively flammable.

Hassan: Yes. The US and Israel and, I guess, the United Kingdom are always in demand, so to speak. Occasionally, you get a certain country in the news where their flags will not be readily available and this is where the shopkeeper steps in. So for Denmark, for example, during the controversy over the cartoons, there was a sudden demand for Danish flags and he stepped in to fill that void.

Werman: How much do these flags go for?

Hassan: Usually about 300 rupees per flag. That’s a bit more than $3.

Werman: Right. Okay.

Hassan: But if you buy in bulk, as many political parties do over here, he offers a small discount for that.

Werman: So, basically, this guy is making a profit from people’s hatred of certain nationalities. Does he seem like a hateful guy himself, or just a smart businessman?

Hassan: No, I think he’s just a smart businessman who happens to have some good connections with political parties here. So he has become the vendor of choice in the area.

Werman: Do you think the success of this flag business is a good way of measuring anti-US and anti-Israeli sentiment?

Hassan: I think to some extent it is, but you could use other metrics for that than out at rallies, the rhetoric you hear from politicians. I think what makes this interesting is someone finding a unique business opportunity and fulfilling it regardless of his ideology.

Werman: What about selling dummies that you can burn an effigy; dummies of reviled political leaders? That might be a growth industry.

Hassan: It could. What I have actually noticed a lot over here, in protests, is they take dolls of cartoon figures and burn those. Winnie-the-Pooh, for some reason, seems to be quite popular.

Werman: Winnie-the-Pooh!

Hassan: Yeah.

Werman: That’s just sacrilegious [laughs]!

Hassan: [Laughs] Well, that’s the thing. I think no one has yet thought of producing effigies of, say, George W. Bush and selling them. So, it’s certainly a potential market for someone.

Werman: Is anyone else manufacturing or selling flags for burning? Or, is this guy alone?

Hassan: I am pretty sure in other cities there must be, because you have a lot of large protests in Karachi too. So, I am sure there must be someone, simply on the principle that if the demand exists a supplier will always step up.

Werman: What was the oddest flag you saw for sale at the shopkeeper’s stationery shop? I mean, a country that really shouldn’t be there, like the Maldives. Were they in there?

Hassan: No, I’d say Norway.

Werman: Norway?

Hassan: Yeah, because they are one of the largest providers of aid to Pakistan, and at the same time they don’t really make any demands on us. So I have no idea who’d ever want to burn that.

Werman: Nadir Hassan of the Express Tribune newspaper speaking to us from Islamabad.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Graffiti by Shamsia Hassani (Photo: Shamsia Hassani)

It began in the darkness of night. Guerrilla warriors of a different kind, armed with cans of spray paint. They painted slogans such as “cost of war” and stenciled images of helicopters, guns and soldiers onto the high concrete walls of buildings in the city.

They weren’t Afghan, but they came back in the daytime, and showed locals like Shamsia Hassani how to create street art.

“It was my first time and it was a very new experience for me because it was different. Usually we use brush but it was spray paint. It was different and a little difficult for me because it was my first time.”

Hassani was one of a group of Afghans who attended a workshop held by a British artist. She was captivated and soon went to an industrial park to create her first work – a huge mural showing a group of women wearing blue burkas emerging from water. (See the image above.)

“You can see the water and woman coming from the water,” she says. “Blue is a freedom color is a clean color and I shows that all Afghan women are like water clean and blue.”

It might be a portrait of progress or hope were it not for the menacing black background. Walls in Kabul are often covered in simple advertising slogans. This new artistic frontier is irresistible to many including Ahmed Ali Akbar. After the workshop, he created his own image of a man screaming.

“This kind of art has rarely been seen here in Afghanistan. It’s something new. Luckily, I was part of the first workshop on it. It’s new and it’s interesting,” says Akbar.

And just in case you think it’s all the preserve of young disaffected youth – Akbar is the director of Afghanistan’s National Gallery.

He says he’s seen a wide range of graffiti – from slogans critical of corruption, political incompetence and druglords to flowers that are meant to signify peace.

“There’s no one single way to characterize it, the main goal is for an artist to express his ideas to the public.”

But trying to exercise freedom of expression here isn’t easy. Even though many walls do carry advertising, graffiti artists aren’t so welcome. So they work at night and work quickly for fear of being caught by police, private security or criminal kidnap gangs.

As a woman, the challenges are even greater for Shamsia Hassani in this conservative country. She’s created wall art only twice – both times inside open air compounds but she’s not letting that stop her.

“I couldn’t go to street to do graffiti work and I decided to have to find a way for myself and I start.”

Captivated by the art form, Shamshia now uses computer software to digitally paint on photos of Kabul’s streets. While she may not gain the same kind of recognition of her male peers, she’s hoping she’ll be able to stage a show – trying to guarantee graffiti is accepted as real art no matter where it appears in the city.

The museum's focus is on landmines but it also features many other weapons, such as rockets (Photo: Iqbal Sapand)

* The broadcast of this report incorrectly cites 40 people that are estimated to be killed or injured each day in Afghanistan. The figure is actually per month. We regret the error.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Hundreds of protestors took to the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan today. They demanded an international investigation into last week’s assassination of former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani. He was killed at his home in Kabul by a suicide bomber. The Afghan capital has seen a sharp rise in violence in the past couple of weeks, that includes two attacks on US targets in Kabul — one was a 20 hour siege of the US embassy by militants firing rocket propelled grenades from a nearby construction site; the other was Sunday’s fatal shooting inside the CIA office. The World’s Laura Lynch is in Kabul. All these reports make Kabul out to be suddenly more of a target for militant attacks. Have you sensed that on the ground, Laura, is it palpable?

Laura Lynch: Well, I think certainly people feel more tense than they have in a while and it is because so many things have happened in such a short space of time. I was speaking to a member of parliament this morning who told me that she noticed that everywhere she went and everyone she talked to just seemed to be so much more on edge than they had been in the past. And you’ve got to remember that this is a place and these are a people who are used to an awful lot of violence. So to sense that they’re feeling a little bit more on edge than they usually do, that’s saying something.

Werman: Have people changed their daily routines at all?

Lynch: To some extent they’ve been forced to change their daily routines because when these incidents have happened parts of the city have been locked down and you can’t move anywhere within those parts of town. So it’s all these disruptions to life here, which is not easy at the best of times. If you’ve ever been in Kabul, then there are the most extraordinary traffic jams you’ve ever seen. Well, this just makes it worse. In spite of all that, people are trying to get on with life and trying to stick to their routines as much as they can. The shops are open, not easy for them, but they’re trying to get things as normal as they can be.

Werman: Kabul used to be considered the one place in Afghanistan that US and Afghan forces could really protect. What has changed that?

Lynch: I think that some would say is that the US forces and the other international forces have drawn back and have let the Afghans take care of the security in this city. And it was seen as a test for the Afghans, if they could control security within Kabul itself. And when there was the incident two weeks ago, the 20 hour siege, you saw these insurgents were firing on the US embassy and they had to bring out US soldiers to get involved on the roof of the embassy to fire back. They didn’t want to get involved directly in the operation in the city itself because they needed to let the Afghan army show and the Afghan police that they could take care of their own. But boy, that sure shook a lot of people’s confidence in the Afghan forces’ ability to take care of security in this city.

Werman: In the wake of these high profile attacks, Laura, has it become harder for you and other journalists to do your jobs?

Lynch: Well, I’ve been here for a week now and I knew when I was coming that there were going to be restrictions in the way I could do my job, and that’s been true of working here as a journalist for some time now. It’s meant that I have to figure out where I’m going, if I should be in a crowd, whether that’s too much of a risk. So, absolutely it affects the way that you can report and it affects your ability to tell the story — the way you tell a story, if I was in London for example, or some other city where I could move about freely and stay anywhere as long as I want.

Werman: Well, yesterday you reported on Afghan widows who live in a neighborhood overlooking Kabul. Was that a dangerous thing to do?

Lynch: Well, you wouldn’t think so. It’s not dangerous in and of itself, Marco, but the rule of thumb nowadays is if you are going to go to a place perhaps on the fringes of the city, refugee camps, you better not stay long. And the fear is that there might be people who are looking at you, seeing you as a foreigner, seeing you as someone they might be able to kidnap for ransom. And these things you do pay attention to. So I stayed there for about 20 or 25 minutes. I would’ve much rather stayed longer, and I had to get back.

Werman: Laura, remind us of the last time you were in Kabul and tell us about one thing that you noticed that really struck you, something that surprised you.

Lynch: Well, the last time I was here was in 2007 and the first change that I noticed when I came back here this time was actually a good change — an airport that was an absolute mess and has now become a relative model of efficiency and security. So that is a good thing. But the other thing I’ve noticed driving around now is the number of barbed wire and security guards around government buildings, around cultural buildings, around private homes. To an extent it seems like this really is far more of a city under siege than it was a few years ago.

Werman: The World’s Laura Lynch in Kabul. Thank you, Laura.

Lynch: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Iqbal, my translator and local producer in Afghanistan, had told me when I arrived that his wife was almost due. Still, I was a bit taken aback with his calm, cool demeanor.

He told me he still intended to go with me to an interview, but I insisted he go to the hospital, even if he had to wait outside on the street as regulations required. Iqbal relented and rushed away in a taxi hoping to arrive before the baby did.

I have been in the city for almost a week now. It is my first visit here since 2007 and I have noticed a marked deterioration in security accompanied by a marked increase in anxiety among the people who have lived through 30-years of war and violence.

On the day I arrived, bleary-eyed from no sleep, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated in his home. Rabbani welcomed a man into his residence believing he was carrying a message of peace and reconciliation from the Taliban. Instead, he was carrying explosives in his turban.

Rabbani, a former warlord who waged war against the Taliban and his rivals in the past, may have been a surprising choice to lead the government appointed council charged with trying to forge a lasting peace. Still, in his death he has been honored as a martyr, with posters and banners suddenly appearing throughout the capital.

The assassination, coming just a week after the Taliban staged a siege in the diplomatic district of Kabul, has given Afghans more reason to expect violence than peace in the near future. They speak of their worry about what will happen next, particularly after foreign forces leave in 2014.

Yet with their legendary resilience, residents in the city move on, working, shopping and, as in Iqbal’s case, gathering with family to mark moments of joy.

His son, Bilal, was born in the early evening hours of yesterday. Before the first day of his life came to an end, the sound of gunfire once again echoed on the streets of Kabul. Reports say an Afghan employee of the US government opened fire inside a building widely known to be the CIA’s compound in Kabul. One American was killed, another injured. The Afghan also died.

A birth, then more violence and death. A strange rhythm to life in this troubled city.

But bringing peace to the war torn country has been a much more difficult challenge.

In some parts of Kabul, water is a luxury for people who have learned to live with so little.

On a hill in southeastern Kabul, children fill plastic jugs from a hose connected to an underground water supply. From here, they face a short hike up a steep, rocky hillside to carry the water to a unique community.

A Community of Widows

“There aren’t any advantages to living here, but I have to,” said 25-year-old Fawzia. She’s one of the newest residents. “I can’t afford to live downtown. And this house doesn’t have windows or doors. It’s not a proper home.”

Her home is a concrete block, perhaps six feet by four feet, overlooking a cemetery. The stench of raw sewage hangs in the air. There is no furniture, just some mattresses on the floor and a tattered old scenic photo of Kabul stuck to one wall.

Fawzia’s husband died in a car accident two years ago and his family refused to take care of her four children. She moved here two months ago. Like the other thousand or so widows who live here, Fawzia may not have much. But it’s more than they might have had in a country where widows are often abused or ignored if their late husband’s family refuses to take them in.

A few steps away, Zarmina Faima slapped mud onto the bricks of a house in progress. She was covered in grey muck from head to toe and smiling.

Zarmina is building a new house after living here for four years in a smaller home. She said her husband died in a suicide attack. For a time, she tried to live with her husband’s family. But Zarmina said the abuse she suffered drove her away and onto this hill.

“This is better,” she said, “because my father in law and brother in law are not here to beat my children or me. I am happy to be able to stand on my own two feet and be able to feed my children.”

Afghanistan’s wars and violence have claimed thousands and thousands of victims over the years. The United Nations estimates nearly half the children in Kabul have lost a parent.

Estimating the number of widows is guesswork, but it could be up to two million. Selay Ghaffar who heads up an organization providing assistance to women and children, says there are few options for widows who are rejected by their husband’s relatives.

“The widow’s life ended up to the begging, prostitution, trafficking and to being a laborer working somewhere, to be always exploited by their owner,” she said.

In other words, slavery.

Coming Together to Build Homes

And so in the last 10 years, widows like Zarmina have gathered here, building illegal homes. In the early days, the police would destroy the homes. The widows would rebuild.
Zarmina says now, the officers have a new tactic.

“The police have come here several times,” Zarmina said. “They stop the trucks carrying the bricks. They asked for bribes and if we pay the bribes then they allow us to build our houses. Otherwise, they’ll keep coming back.”

Zarmina takes a trowel to smooth the mud over the bricks, sealing any holes to try to keep the coming winter chill out. Her mother, Gulsom watches from just outside the narrow room. Gulsom has lived here for eight years, after her husband and four of her children were killed when a rocket hit their home in Kabul. She still bears the physical scars and the painful memories of that day and the life it has led her to here on the hill.

“I don’t have enough money to pay rent. Since I can’t even earn enough money to buy food then how can I pay rent?” Gulsom asked. “When my children died I didn’t have enough money to buy coffins for them. I will never forget that moment.

The widows have formed an association but in reality, there’s little solidarity as they all struggle to survive. Just last week, Afghanistan honored one of its former warlords with a majestic burial on a hilltop above the capital. The colony of widows on the other side of town offers another glimpse of the country’s living legacy of war.

Banner commemorating Rabbani who had been meeting Taliban commanders, returning from abroad a few days ago specifically for the talks. (Photo: Laura Lynch)

People across Afghanistan are mourning the death of a former warrior who was trying to sow the seeds of peace. Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated last night in his home by a suicide bomber who detonated explosives hidden in his turban. Rabbani was the head of the peace council, charged with negotiating an end to conflict with the Taliban. Now, some are asking whether there is any hope for peace.

On the street outside Rabbani’s home the mourners gathered early and gathered in anger at the assassin who took his life. Soon, banners featuring his photograph were draped over the building, marking his status as a martyr for peace among those who supported him.

Member of Parliament Fawzia Koofi was one of the first people to go to Rabbani’s house last night, as soon as she heard the news. “Of course it was shocking for me to see his dead body and his face which was completely damaged,” Koofi said.

Koofi didn’t always agree with Rabbani, but they were from the same province of Afghanistan. His death makes her question the value of trying to make peace with the Taliban.

“It is a big political loss and of course morally it affects everybody,” she said, “because for people who struggle for peace this is the response they get from the enemies of Afghanistan.”

For Afghan president Hamid Karzai, it is yet another blow. Within the past three months, two other close advisers, including his half brother, were also assassinated.

Government spokesman Janan Mosazail predicted more will die on Afghanistan’s rough road to peace, but he insists it’s no reason to stop negotiating.

“We have made it very clear from the beginning, and I think the world agrees with us,” Mosazail said, “that there is no military solution to the war in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have suffered for thirty years. There has to be a political solution, there has to be an end to the war in Afghanistan that is supported, that is endorsed and that is respected by everybody – countries in the region, and others further afield.”

“So that’s why we have announced this peace process. Of course there have been setbacks, there will be setbacks. Professor Rabbani is not the first and he will not be the last prominent Afghan leader who has been killed by terrorists trying to derail the peace process. But we will continue with our efforts,” Mosazail said.

The peace process was already fragile under Rabbani’s leadership. One of his closest advisors, Atta Mhummad Nur, now wants only vengeance.

“I am calling on all the followers of the great leader to unite and take revenge on those parasitic worms and those dragon-like blood-thirsty people behind the killing of the martyr and national hero,” he said. The peace council does not have any meaning for us any longer. Peace and understanding do not mean anything with these killers in Afghanistan.

No one is certain who sent the men who killed Rabbani. But the prospect of more and more Afghans taking up arms is worrying in a country beset by civil war less than two decades ago, a civil war that gave way to the brutal rule of the Taliban.

On the streets of Kabul today, there is a continuing unease. Yesterday’s assassination came just a week after the city was locked down by a 20 hour attack by the Taliban. Rabbani’s violent death is one more reason to worry about the future.

As an elderly man made his way down the street with a prayer mat slung over his shoulder, he predicted the worst is yet to come. And not just in Kabul.

“Even in my home village,” he said, “a leading politician was recently killed. The continuing violence makes it harder for me and others to believe in the chances for a lasting peace.”

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