Thorn Tree travel forum

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General Information

From Kabul Caravan Online Travel Guide to Afghanistan: http://www.kabulcaravan.com/safety.html

Travel to Afghanistan contains an inherent amount of risk. While the security situation in the country was good under the Taliban regime, the Karzai administration has struggled to impose central control on the regions, and ISAF remains confined to Kabul and its immediate environs. There has been a return to warlordism in large parts of the country, and certain areas susceptible to banditry or armed instability. Afghanistan is also one of the most heavily land-mined countries in the world. As such, all potential travellers should take steps to reduce their chances of exposing themselves to danger.

lways check the current situation on the ground before entering the country. The best sources are news services and those who have recently visited Afghanistan. Weekly country-wide status reports can be obtained from the website of the Afghanistan Information Management Service (AIMS, www.aims.org.af ), which include local security updates. AIMS also produce country-wide maps assessing security and landmine risks. ReliefWeb (www.reliefweb.org) is another excellent source of up to the minute information, as well as the UN news service IRIN (www.irinnews.org/asiafp.asp). In Peshawar and Kabul, ACBAR http://Agency Coordinating Body for Afghanistan-AkS, www.acbar.org can provide area-specific information. A short wave radio is useful for staying in touch with the news while travelling inside the country.

Security in Kabul and Kunduz-AkS is currently provided by ISAF troops, although the international community has repeatedly refused to extend its mandate beyond the immediate city environs.

As a general rule, the Southern and Eastern provinces of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan in the Pashtun heartlands should be regarded as very high risk for independent travel due to the potential for insurgent activity from Taliban remnants, supporters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other Islamist elements in areas where anti-Western sentiments run high. These provinces include Kunar, Laghman, Nangahar, Logar, Paktia and Paktika, as well as Zabol, Kandahar, Helmand and Oruzgan. The UN and other agencies have suspended or curtailed many programmes in southern Afghanistan as a result of recent attacks. Of particular concern was the murder of an ICRC worker near Kandahar in later March 2003, specifically targeted as a westerner. This was followed in April by the killing of an Italian traveller at Qalat, between Kandahar and Ghazni.The UN currently operate a travel curfew on the Herat-Kandahar-Kabul road. Other agencies have dissuaded staff from travelling in highly visible four-wheel drive vehicles, in an attempt to ‘blend in’.

It should be noted that both the Torkham-Kabul and Spin Boldak-Kandahar roads run through the provinces above. Although in general the security on the Torkham-Kabul road can be regarded as fair to good, there have been some reports of banditry, and Afghan deminers were attacked on this road in April 2003. the road from Spin Boldak should not be travelled unless in a convoy.

There have been a number of bomb attacks in Kabul and Kandahar since the fall of the Taliban, and there have been regular incidents of small arms- and mortar-fire directed at the US bases at Kandahar and Bagram. At different times, NGOs have suspended operations in particular areas due to potential risk providing further evidence of Afghanistan's fragile security situation. Again, it is vital to check with reliable sources of information prior to travel to any region in the country.

Acquiring a working knowledge of recent Afghan history, local customs and a basic understanding of Islam is also to be highly recommended before travelling.

Since 2002, many countries have re-opened their embassies in Kabul. It is worth registering your presence in the country with them, even though they can only provide the most limited consular assistance.

Landmines

Afghanistan is littered with landmines- never walk off the beaten path. If locals avoid a particular area, so should you. Take a guide and don't walk alone in unknown areas. When travelling by road, stay on the road when answering the call of nature. As well as mines, there is a risk from unexploded ordnance (UXOs), including bomblets dropped by US forces in the 2001-2002 air campaign.

Over 10 Afghans are killed by landmines and UXOs everyday. Being able to recognise areas that are likely to be mined will help allow you to avoid taking unnecessary risks. Remember, landmines are laid to be invisible.

The UN Mine Action Programme (UNMAP) marks rocks with red paint to signify dangerous areas/ known minefields. The rocks are repainted white when the area is cleared. In unmarked areas, landmines/UXOs might be found in the following areas:

Unused footpaths and tracks, verges of roads, around culverts and bridge abutments, alongside walls (particularly damaged buildings, around wells and water access points, in irrigation channels, around (abandoned) military posts and destroyed vehicles.

DO NOT: touch or move interesting/unknown objects, leave well-worn paths or tracks, or walk in unknown areas without a local guide.

DO: seek information on local mine problems and take a local guide, retrace you steps out of a suspect area when possible, stay alert to telltale signs for landmines and UXOs, trust your judgement and don't follow others blindly.

If you see a landmine or UXO: stop, stay calm and think. Shout a warning to others near you, and turn around and retrace your steps slowly and exactly. Once on safe ground mark the danger area with a line of rocks, and inform the nearest UNAMA representative or NGO demining office immediately.

Landmine information taken from Essential Field Guides: Afghanistan with permission. (The guide provides excellent general security and safety information, and is recommended reading before travel.)

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I've found it very interesting; I'm going to Afghanistan in few months. As I'm a sociologist interested in extreme tourism - there're many interesting news in the letter. What about tourism in Kabul general - are there many individual or organised tourists?
isanmag

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I'd be really curious to know how many tourists have made the trip to Kabul since november 2001. I think Shemsuddin, a regular poster back then, was the first to cross the border ( post 9/11 ) in february 2002.
How many has followed him since then ? 200, 300, more ?..

About the recent killings of two Brits in the Nurestan: tell me if I'm wrong but I think it's the first grave incident of this kind in a non-pashtoon area. As I recall, the precedent murders or kidnappings of foreigners always happened in the "pashtoon belt".
I'm desesperate I can't visit Paroun* in a foreseeable future ...!!

*Capital of Nurestan

I love the smell of kymys in the morning
..............
My travel in Afghanistan

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Recently I wrote an article about tourism in Afghanistan for a Swiss magazine. There I made interviews. If you understand German I can tell you the link...

have a lucky day,
thats what I say...

My travelling, German PB
Holiday house in Switzerland

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The capital of Nuristan is Khamdesh I think, but there may be a couple of different places as Nuristan is a general area rather than a province on its own. (Interestingly, did anyone note that Panjshir was officially made a province last week to celebrate the memory of Massoud, and make Fahim's backyard arms dump even more powerful?).

Nuristan has been instable on and off since the end of the Taliban. It straddles the provinces of Laghman and Kunar in the east. There are lots of Pashtuns there, and the fact that it is hard against the Pakistan border (and the very conservative Pashtun area of Chitral) means that various dodgy elements keep cropping up there. There are consistent reports of Gulbuddin (Hekmatyar) and his goons having a base in the area. So I'd suggest keeping those daydreams of 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' on ice for a little longer. Even by Afghan standards, Nuristan is remote due to the complete lack of roads, so you're along way from help in a heavily armed and paranoid corner of the country.

I think desertrose who posts here from time to time went to Nuristan about a year ago, so the situation must be fluid like much of the rest of the country.

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Any news on Nuristan most welcome. Been dreaming about the place ever since "A short walk in the Hindu Kush", and the brethren Kalash valleys count as some of the most magical I have ever, ever seen.

Were two brits killed in Nuristan recently? Any news/links to news on that welcome! Were they travellers? How many travellers have indeed perished in A'stan in later years? I felt reasonably safe there, but I may have underestimated the security risks. I have only heard about one Italian, I think in the Kandahar area last spring. Have there been many incidents? That could put a dampener on my desire to go back soon I guess.

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President Karzai condemns killing of two UK election workers in Afghanistan
The Associated Press
05/06/2004

TWO British election workers and their Afghan interpreter were killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, the first fatalities in a string of assaults on United Nations staff preparing the country for crucial polls.

The Britons were killed in Nuristan province, about 100 miles east of the capital, Kabul, said Global Risk Strategies, the British-based security company which employed the men.

"Both of the individuals involved were British nationals, working alongside the United Nations," the company said in a statement from its London headquarters. It did not release their names.

The United Nations said the deaths would slow a drive to register some ten million Afghans for the September vote, but vowed to press on in the face of surging Taleban-led violence.

A white UN helicopter brought the men's bodies to Kabul yesterday afternoon. It was unclear when they would be returned to Britain.

The company said "local bandits" were believed to be behind the attack, but Afghan officials said it was unclear if it was a "criminal or a terrorist incident".

"Unfortunately we have a lot of irresponsible armed people in this country," said the Afghan interior ministry spokesman Latfulla Mashal. "We don't know who was behind it."

President Hamid Karzai condemned a "cowardly act aimed at terrorising the people of Afghanistan" and disrupting the election.

"Afghanistan will continue relentlessly on the path that the people of the country have chosen: the path of peace, prosperity and reconstruction," his office said in a statement.

Nuristan, a rugged region of high peaks and wooded valleys on the Pakistani border, has its share of bandits. It is also considered a stronghold of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a top United States terror suspect. Hekmatyar, an Islamic fundamentalist and veteran of Afghanistan's bloody civil war, has joined the Taleban in vowing to drive out foreign troops and unseat Mr Karzai, the US-backed favourite in the election.

Farooq Wardak, the Afghan government's top election official, said the deaths could have "very serious consequences" for the elections, by possibly deterring UN international monitors.

"The election wouldn't have that much international credibility" in their absence, Mr Wardak said.

UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said there would be "at least a delay" in voter registration in Nuristan but he vowed the process would proceed uninterrupted elsewhere.

"It happened in a specific place," he said. "We look at security on a case-by-case basis."

London-based Global Risk has been surveying rural Afghanistan to help the UN decide where it is safe to open offices to register some ten million Afghan voters.

Almost two million people in eight major cities have already signed up for the election, but the world body only began on Saturday with a two-month plan to register voters in the lawless countryside.

Nuristan is one of four provinces where insecurity has prevented that. Mr Wardak said he hoped that registration could still begin as planned in Nuristan today - without UN international staff. Still, no start-date has been set for Zabul, Uruzgan and Paktika - the other areas viewed as too dangerous for election work.

Last month, a roadside bomb was detonated in Kandahar as UN workers passed, forcing a temporary suspension of all UN work in that region. In March, UN officials were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire as they slept in a government compound in Paktia.

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The only 'traveller' I know of who has been killed was in spring 2003 - an Italian near Qalat, between Kandahar and Ghazni.

In the last year 5 foreign workers have been killed, and in all cases were specifically targetted becauase they were westerners. Apart from the two Nuristan killings of Britons, the other killing have been in Kandhgar and Ghazni. Around 25 Afghan NGO workers have been killed.

It's not Disneyland just yet, so take security warnings seriously.

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In terms of "travellers" I think that's right - one Italian. However, the circumstances of his death are still unclear as far as i can tell - does anyone know the exact story? There have been numerous foreign workers killed in the past year, though most of them seem to have been Turkish contractors working on the roads, i.e. the new Kabul-Kandahar road. There were several foreign workers killed north of Jallalabad a few months ago and there were at least 5 de-miners shot near Herat in March - i think 2 of them were non-Afghan.

My limited observation from only a few weeks of travel there would lead me to say that while it's peaceable up north you can never tell who's watching, and therefore security should be a traveller's foremost consideration. But I think that the UN and NGO people have an opposite problem - a phobia about security. Naturally they have to follow the rules of their organisations but they seem paralysed by their fears. People I spoke to in Kabul were astonished when I told them I was travelling out to the provinces. Actually it became a running joke that whenever I left the Mustafa hotel to go to Bamiyan, Panjshir etc. they took odds on me making it back... ;)

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Travelleres killed in Afghanistan?

Two foreigners stoned to death in Afghanistan

09/05/2004 10:26

KABUL (Reuters) - Two foreign nationals, one of them Swiss, have been stoned to death in the Afghan capital.

Bodies of the men were discovered in Baghe Chilstone, an ancient garden not far from the city’s centre, Interior Ministry spokesman Lufullah Mashal, told Reuters on Sunday.

"Locals informed the police and showed them the bodies and an investigation is going on as to who stoned these to death, and why," Mashal said. "One of them holds a Swiss passport and the nationality of the other is not known."

Both had come from neighbouring Pakistan nine days ago, said Khalil Aminzada, deputy chief of Kabul police.

He said the two were wearing local shalwar (baggy trousers) and long shirts as well as woollen hats. The two were pelted last night with bricks and stones and their bodies were being examined by local forensic experts, he added.

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I recently read an article about the Americans sending fresh troops into Afghanistan in another attempt to weed out Osama. Does anyone know anything specific about this? Surely if its true this will heighten tensions in the country. I'm going to be heading over the Khyber pass in about 10 days and planning on taking the central route, so I'd like to know.

Thanks.

http://drifter.ca

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i was in Kabul when the italian was killed. According to what NGO's worker have told me, the Italian , a solo independant traveller, was driving a motorbike between kandahar and Ghazni and had to stop because of a leaky tire. He then stopped a taxi ... and the end of the story tells us that the taxi driver (or some friends of him) did not like too much foreigners...
According to me, he did several mistakes:
-bad area: kandahar and Ghazni must be avoided by travellers
-he was alone
-he was easy to spot with a western motorbike that can not be found locally, a quiet impressive engine for local
-he did not have the equipment to repair his tire, and considering the state of the roads there, it's a mistake.

didier

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Swiss deaths criminal, officials say

Associated Press
Monday May 10, 6:51 PM

Concern that militants are targeting foreigners was fueled Sunday when the bodies of two men, one carrying a Swiss passport, were founded in a Kabul park.

But Rudi Hager, the head of a Swiss development agency in Kabul which doubles as a diplomatic mission, said Monday there were "no indications that there is a political background or a drug-smuggling background."

Hager told AP that authorities had identified the second man "with 80 percent-certainty" also as a Swiss citizen, and said the pair may have been robbed of some valuables.

"I think it's a straightforward criminal case," he said.

Hager said the men had registered as tourists at the Swiss Embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and crossed into Afghanistan at the end of April.

He said they had been traveling around South Asia since the end of last year, and that Iranian visas in the passports suggested they wanted to continue west.

Hager said x-rays were being taken for comparison with dental records in Switzerland to confirm their identities and that relatives would be informed Monday. Neither victim was identified.

Police said the men were wearing baggy Afghan dress and woolen hats and had been beaten over the head with stones or bricks. Mashal said they had also been stabbed and that one also showed signs of strangulation.

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Yeah, it's pretty scary.

It does seem as if the emphasis could be shifting from "officials" to "anyone" western.
If that's the case, then it's a shame as i hoped to return there someday in the future