Suicide attacks change life in Afghan capital
KABUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) Afghanistan's drivers are some of the most fearless in the world. But a string of suicide attacks on foreign military convoys has changed all that.
Afraid of being caught up in a Taliban attack, they now slow down or veer off the road to avoid the convoys.
''I either stop my car or basically change my route when I see the troops because of the fear of suicide attackers,'' says Mohammad Afzal, a 45-year-old taxi driver in Kabul, which has seen six suicide bombings in as many weeks in the relatively peaceful capital.
''One gets scared and has to avoid the convoys,'' he says, waiting for passengers on an autumn day.
Fellow taxi driver Khan Mohammad says if he can't avoid the convoy, he prays to God to forgive him and send him to paradise if he dies: ''That is all I can do. Everybody is scared, I think.'' Another fear for many is being fired on by nervous soldiers if they get too close. The United Nations and foreign aid groups have warned their drivers to avoid military convoys.
In Iraq, convoy vehicles carry signs warning drivers to keep their distance, but that is rare and of little use in largely illiterate Afghanistan.
Still not as common in Afghanistan as in Iraq, the increasing suicide attacks this year have killed about 200 people, mostly civilians, according to NTO, compared with 50-60 last year.
Dozens of people have been killed in six suicide attacks in as many weeks in the crowded and traffic-snarled streets of the capital Kabul. There was only one suicide attack in the city in the same time last year.
Some Kabulis have stopped sending their children to school.
In the worst recent bombing, 16 people, including two American soldiers, were killed near the heavily fortified US embassy when a suicide bomber rammed his car into a passing convoy on a busy street last month.
The rise in such attacks comes as Afghanistan is gripped by the worst violence since the ouster of the Islamist Taliban government in 2001.
Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak warned parliament recently bombings would rise ahead of the coming winter, which normally leads to a lull in fighting each year.
The use of suicide attacks was becoming a major tactic of the Taliban in their battle to oust foreign forces, he added.
Police have stepped up security, but the streets are chaotic in an overcrowded city of four million built for one million.
The rising dangers in Kabul has prompted some families to keep their children home.
''I have barred my two kids, a boy and a girl, from going to school just because of the threat of suicide attacks,'' said 40 year-old housewife Hamida.
Reuters DKB GC1255