Afghan refugees say air strikes “no solution”

The Afghan refugee community in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan has said that air strikes against Afghanistan in retaliation for last week’s terrorist attacks against the US are not the solution. On Thursday, the Afghan refugee community met at the Central Mosque in the capital, Bishkek, to honour the memory of opposition leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. About 200 male members of the community gathered to debate the future of Afghanistan and the US’s possible reactions to the 11 September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Most refugees agree that bombing is not a solution. According to Salim Naziri, regarded as one of the “sages” of the Afghan community in Bishkek, “Terrorism must be punished, and I am 100 percent sure there will be some bombing, but this will not solve anything. Innocent people will die again.” He believes that a Kosovo-style operation is needed. “Only a military engagement on the ground will solve the problem. What we need is an operation like [the one] in Kosovo. It’s the only way we can gradually build democracy in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, people are divided, each ethnic group, each valley has its own leader. An operation must collect weapons from all communities, like in Macedonia,” Naziri said. “Our society hates the Taliban, because we are not fundamentalist. But bombing is useless. The terrorists are dislocated all over the country, in villages and mountains. Besides, the Taliban have imposed long beards on all men, so you cannot tell the difference,” Abdul Salam, a refugee who has lived in Kyrgyzstan for five years, told IRIN. “We have warned the world for years [that] the Taliban problem is not a threat to Afghanistan only, it is a threat to the whole of Central Asia, and today, to the world.” Ismail Abdulmajid, a former policeman in Afghanistan, who has been living as a refugee in Kyrgyzstan for the past six years, agreed. “If the US bombs Afghanistan, it will not solve the problem. What we need is a military intervention on the ground, conducted by several countries and not just one state,” he said. All the Afghans interviewed said that those countries which had contributed to the roots of terrorism inside Afghanistan should be the target of a US response to the terrorist attacks. “We must focus on the roots of terrorism. The US must search the Pakistani fundamental groups, that is the root of the problem. Killing Bin Laden will not solve the problem, Naziri said. While there is a general feeling amongst the refugees that this is the last chance to bring peace to Afghanistan if finally the world becomes involved in the conflict, they are torn between fear and hope. “If this is the last war to be fought for Afghanistan, we support it. But we ask the US to be very careful, and target only military bases and Taliban centres. We don’t want innocent Afghan civilians to die again,” a former ‘Kabul Times’ journalist, Majid Qiyam, told IRIN. “If the situation evolves towards a foreign military presence, I will return to Afghanistan and fight against the Taliban. I am ready,” said Abdulmajid.