Mazar gone; can Kabul be far behind?

This was the day Mazar fell, and it was now absolutely crystal clear to one and all that Kabul would be next! Just a few days earlier, Afghanistan’s infamous Bagram Air Base and its prison with 5,000 inmates fell to the  Taliban. The prisoners were all immediately recruited  by the Taliban. It did not need rocket science for anyone  to understand that Kabul was now in serious danger and  that nothing and nobody was safe and nobody could or  would save Kabul, least of all the international troops,  who were fast packing their bags and heading back  home leaving behind a chaotic, messy, poverty-stricken country!  

Since the morning, speculation was rife in the Serena breakfast area that Ghani would be making a public  address announcing a so-called peace deal or power sharing pact with the Taliban. This was also what I had  heard from the Indian embassy officials, who seemed to  be more concerned about my presence there than about  assessing the ground situation, which was changing every  second. They once again asked me to leave, catching the first flight available. But I did not want to as I felt it was  my responsibility towards my readers and my viewers  to tell them what was happening on the ground. Just like  the diplomats there, I was also doing my job. 

This was the day I completed a week in Afghanistan, and I was bombarded with emails, messages and DMs  thanking me for my reportage. People wanted more such  reports because the other media organizations that had  sent reporters to Afghanistan only showed the ‘war’ in  its full glory, some by getting embedded with Afghan  soldiers and some by making ‘connections’ with their  sources. One reader said I was the ‘only’ journalist  delivering hard-hitting and meaningful reports from  Afghanistan. These encouraging words from those  whom I had never met or seen gave me the inspiration to  carry on with what I intended to do there.  

Back at the Serena, I began to make plans to visit Kandahar. I thought Kandahar, after Mazar-i-Sharif,  would be a good place to report from. But unlike Mazar,  Kandahar looked immensely challenging since it had  fallen to the Taliban a few days back, on Aug 12. But I had one source who said he could help. I did not want to miss this opportunity for anything. But flights  to Kandahar were thinning out by then, so I planned to  travel by road. Thankfully, my cab driver agreed to take  me. One of his aunts stayed in Kandahar, and we planned  to stay the night there. 

Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban and the  place from where Mullah Omar had ruled at one time.  Post the takeover by the Taliban in Aug 2021, while Kabul remained the capital of Afghanistan, its ideological  and spiritual capital was Kandahar. Also, once again the history student in me started to speak. After all, Kandahar was founded by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Having come all the way to Afghanistan, I did not want  to miss out on the opportunity to explore that city, which  was steeped in history. Mullah Muhammad Omar had  risen to power in 1996 when he proclaimed himself  to be the leader of the Taliban in a grand ceremony at  Kandahar’s most revered shrine and got the title of Amir ul-Momineen—the highest religious title in Islam.  

Just as I began to pack my bags, my mobile phone rang. It was Hekmatyar’s men again, and this time they  did not seem as serious as earlier and spoke with a smile  in their voice. They informed me that Hekmatyar had  agreed to give me an interview but I could not bring  my own camera or mojo kit. The interview would be  shot in his studio... Needless to say, I was shocked  at the offer, because Hekmatyar was known to be very conservative. But I was happy, of course. Happy would  be an understatement... I was thrilled.  

Being a lone journalist in Afghanistan, I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to bother with the lights, camera  and mics and that my work would happen seamlessly. But they had one condition—his team wanted to take me out to dinner for an ‘informal chat’. I agreed. I was ready  to get this interview at any cost, and they seemed decent and polite enough to be trusted. They said they would  pick me up from Serena at 5 pm. The venue would  be disclosed later. 

As soon as I finished with the conversation, I packed my bags and left for Kandahar, which was supposed to be a day’s trip from Kabul. I hurried up as I had to return to Kabul by 5 pm. Besides, it was impossible to  stay back there anyway as the situation was fast turning grim. We crossed Kabul, which was comparatively more crowded than on other days, and straightaway hit the Kabul–Ghazni Highway/AH-1 and reached a place called Kala in a little more than an hour. News was now trickling in that Nangarhar had fallen as the Governor of  the province had surrendered Jalalabad. So the Taliban  had captured yet another semi-urban province without a fight. 

This effectively meant that the Ghani government was now left with only Kabul. The capital of Afghanistan would be the next to fall. While nothing was yet  confirmed, I dialed a few scholars and journalist friends who said panic had already taken over at Arg Palace, but they also spoke with surety about the president making a public address and some ‘solution’ being  found. However, they were unanimous on one point—‘Come Back!’ They asked me to come back to Kabul. If  the capital city fell, they said, then all borders would be choked and I would be ‘lost somewhere in the mountains,  never to be found’. We reversed direction. My aborted Kandahar trip remains an incomplete chapter of my life, the unfulfilled dream of a reporter. Maybe someday it will come true. 

On our way back I tried calling some of the senior Taliban leaders based in Doha to get an assessment of the situation and to find out what their plans were  now; and most importantly, if there was really any ‘solution’ coming out of the talks that were going on  there. I once again tried to connect with the press team of Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Dr Karzai, but they all seemed to have vanished into thin air. Something was amiss, I thought. Finally, I managed to speak to a Taliban leader (name withheld). It was a two- or three-minute WhatsApp call. He said, ‘Madam, ab Kabul duur nahin’, with pride in his voice. I shuddered. But still, I did not want to return to India. History was playing out in front of my eyes. How could I leave all  that and come back... I felt guilty at the same time as my family, especially my son, were waiting for me back  home. But I knew that one day he would understand,  that one day he would draw courage from this, and that  one day he would also learn what journalism is. He  would know that his mother did not sit in a TV studio  or in some editorial meeting dishing out meaningless, inauthentic stories or screaming at the top of her lungs  to attract viewers and readers; she had been there in the  midst of what was happening and had tried to bring back as many real stories as possible. 

By the time I reached Serena it was evening, and I waited for Ghani’s address, like millions of others around  the world. Just then, news came in that the Taliban had  reached the gates of Kabul and were camping there, even as they vowed not to take power by force and would avoid bloodshed.  

Excerpts from the book ‘The Fall of Kabul: Despatches from Chaos’