Los Angeles Times
September 27, 2004
KABUL, Afghanistan — The entrance to Khailmohmad Safi's garage is blocked
by about 200 sandbags, and a few feet away, behind 8-foot-high concrete
barriers, several heavily armed men talk into their radios and peer out into the
street.
The setting looks like the gateway to a military base. Instead,
it is a street in the middle of one of the capital's most affluent
neighborhoods. The road contains the residential compound of the DynCorp
security firm.
The Virginia-based contractor, which provides security
guards for interim President Hamid Karzai and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad,
has good reason to maintain strong security — its nearby office was bombed
Aug. 29 and about 10 people were killed, including three Americans.
But
some residents of the Shar-i-Naw neighborhood have become fed up with the
barriers erected by DynCorp to restrict access to their street.
The
residents complain that they and their guests are unfairly searched before being
allowed to get to the ir homes and businesses. They worry about becoming the
victims of a terrorist attack on DynCorp facilities.
As a result, they
want the firm to move.
"I feel like we are under an occupation," Safi
said. "This is a residential area, and we are civilians. I'm worried we will
be hit by a rocket. We had visiting guests come but when they saw the Americans
with guns they became so scared they turned around and left."
The
complaints underscore the growing resentment and concerns about Americans in
Kabul less than three years after U.S.-led forces were welcomed as liberators.
In late 2001, images of men jubilantly shaving off the beards the oppressive
Taliban regime had forced them to grow were broadcast across the world, and
children in the streets ran alongside convoys of U.S. tanks, waving.
But attitudes may be changing, in part because of the security issue and the
behavior of some employees of the private security firms. The problem has
reached the point that the U.S. Embassy is f orming a committee to address the
issue of Afghan perceptions of Americans, a Western official said.
Heated debates abound in teashops and bazaars about security contractors —
many of whom drive aggressively, block off streets without notification, wear
military fatigues and wraparound shades and appear to randomly point weapons at
residents on congested streets.
"This is being looked at by
the highest levels in the U.S. Embassy, including the ambassador and
his staff," said the Western official. "As in any relationship, the first bloom
of love may have worn off but hopefully there is still a great deal of
affection."
In Safi's case, his carpentry shop was ordered shut after
part of his street was closed.
"I had a small shop that I rented to a
carpenter. The Americans didn't trust the carpenter and told him to leave, and
I had to close the store," he said. "I earned 3,000 afghanis [about
$70] a month and the money was used to support my family and five children,
but I can't make ends meet now."
DynCorp refused to comment.
Safi's son, Atal, 19, said his guests and female relatives are forced to undergo
searches.
"In our tradition it is bad that women are coming and their
bags are checked," he said. "When our guests come to our homes their bags are
checked, it takes an hour. Then they, the Americans, come to my house, ask what
I am doing, who my guests are and why they are coming. We are not
terrorists."
There are believed to be hundreds of private security
contractors in Afghanistan. For example, London-based Global Risk Strategies,
which is also in Iraq, is helping the United Nations organize the Oct. 9
elections by assessing security in some of the most dangerous parts of the
country, where support for the Taliban remains strong.
But some other
security contracting businesses engage in a murkier trade, and there are no laws
governing their conduct. Some contractors work on their own, as bounty hunters,
hoping to cash in on the $50-million reward for Osama bin Laden.
Jonathan K. Idema is believed to have been one such freelance bounty hunter.
Idema, an American, was ordered this month in an Afghan court to serve a 10-year
sentence for running a private prison in which he interrogated detainees for
information about the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Many security contractors
earn lucrative salaries — as much as $2,000 a day — to protect top
ambassadors and senior members of the Afghan government.
DynCorp is also
helping to train the new Afghan army, which may be why it was targeted in the
August bombing. The State Department hired the company in 2002 to protect
Karzai after an assassination attempt in his home province of Kandahar. There
was another attempt on Karzai's life this month, when a rocket was fired at his
helicopter.
Khalilzad recently expressed concern
about the behavior of some contractors.
"They are unofficial ambassadors
of the United Sta tes, and we need to balance security with other concerns, the
need for being open, respecting civilian Afghans, in the way we drive and
conduct ourselves," he said. "At the same time we need to be mindful there are
people out there who do not wish us well. This will be a constant
struggle."
Outside the embassy's imposing compound there is a sign that
reads: "The U.S. Embassy would be grateful if any of our friends who have
information on terrorist activity or threat information would please come to
this gate between the hours of 10 a.m. and noon on Sunday through
Thursday."
The sign is an indication of the battle for the hearts and
minds of Afghans. Taliban insurgents are distributing propaganda against
Westerners, including circulating rumors that American soldiers recently threw
hand grenades into crowds of protesters in the western province of Herat.
When American private contractors behave aggressively, it confirms the
worst suspicions in the minds of some Afghans, said one Americ an observer.
It is also difficult for employees at the U.S. Embassy to combat such
rumors partly because of tight security restrictions that prevent them from
going out in public and putting a nonmilitary face on America's nation-building
efforts, another official said. "We are somewhat hindered by how little we go
out," he said.
Syed Miraqa Sadat, 33, another neighborhood resident,
said he complained to the Interior Ministry about the restrictions but nothing
was done.
"If our own government cannot do anything, it feels like we
are being occupied," he said. "Americans came here to support us, and for
peace, but we didn't expect this."
Nazar Mohmad Khazak, 81, who has
lived on the street for 44 years, compared life with the security contractors to
the Russian occupation of the 1980s.
"We are scared of the Americans,"
he said. "The Russians were here for 10 years and their military stations were
out of the city, not among families. I passed the difficulties of the Rus sian
occupation. But as difficult as that was, it wasn't as hard as this."