The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

home to Afghanistan, encouraged by the prospect of a more sane future secured by the International Security Assistance Force and President Hamid Karzai. Stability in this part of Pakistan is not guaranteed, however, as most of the Taliban who fled the U.S. attacks are now living either in Peshawar, the rugged Northwest Frontier Province, or in the Pashtun tribal areas along the border, where there has never been government control. As we passed the massive Bala Hisar Fort in Peshawar’s old town, built by the Mughal emperor Babur, Bob and I conjectured that the Pakistan Army hunkered down inside was also a target due to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s alliance with the West. Security was extremely tight at Consulate Peshawar, the once noisy street outside only a memory due to barriers blocking access except for authorized vehicles. Needless to say, consulate person- nel were delighted to receive the classified material we delivered. After a jarring return to Islamabad with Peshawar’s outbound material, we were off to Kabul the next morn- ing aboard the 45-minute United Nations flight that ser- vices the Afghan capital four times a week. For the first part of the trip we retraced the previous day’s route to Peshawar: Bob and I gazed down upon the confluence of the turquoise and adobe-brown rivers at Attock, followed by the gun-barrel-straight Grand Trunk Road into Peshawar. Seconds later, we were over the autonomous Pashtun tribal lands, marveling at the family fortresses with gun turrets and crenellated walls strewn over the barren land on either side of the Khyber Pass road. Next the naked Suleiman range rising to the Khyber Pass came into view, its folds still embracing the severe switchbacks of the British “Great Game” railroad on its climb to the summit and forlorn border town at Landi Kotal. Over the Pass Just over the pass is Afghanistan, with the glaciated Spinghar (White) Mountains to the south forming its bor- der with Pakistan. Along the eastern end of this spectac- ular range glistening in the winter sun was a dark gash penetrating its icy peaks. Known as Tora Bora, this gorge is where Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida forces with- stood massive U.S. bombing and slipped away across the border into the lawless regions of Pakistan. In another section of the range, U.S. forces battled the Pashtun war- lord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami soldiers, killing 18, in January 2003. This rugged border gives sanctuary to those who would like to overthrow the Karzai government and therefore is a constant focal point in the war against terrorism. To the north of the Khyber and the Spinghar, the mas- sive, snow-covered Hindu Kush dwarf the landscape, as the range climbs toward the Panjshir Valley of the late Northern Alliance commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud (the Lion of Panjshir), and the 25,000-feet- high Pamirs of Tajikistan. The Spinghar range runs east-west, so we paralleled its craggy ridgeline as we descended into the parched Kabul valley, at about 6,000 feet above sea level, and the remnants of the 500-year-old Mughal capi- tal (before it was moved to Delhi). The first shock upon landing in Kabul is the number of destroyed Soviet-era planes litter- ing the airfield, from MiGs to the Antonovs and Ilyushins of Ariana, the national airline. When Bob and I deplaned, we were met by our embassy escort and a detail of two diplomatic security officers. The tight security is due to the assassinations that have occurred at the airport, as well as the continuing citywide attacks against Inter- national Security Assistance Forces troops. After our classified material was secured in a government vehicle, we were off to the nearby embassy compound. Security at the mission was tight; the Marine Expeditionary Force put all vehicles and passengers through rigorous inspec- tions. When we were given clearance to offload our material at the chancery building, it became clear the entire facil- ity was an armed encampment. Sandbagged gun emplacements crown each corner of the embassy’s roof, while its main door was a sandbagged fortress as well, guarded by two Marines. As the information manage- ment officer began giving Bob a signature for each classi- fied pouch, I wandered over to the nearby flagpole to read a memorial plaque at its base. I took an extra deep breath of thin mountain air when I realized the plaque itself was a piece of gray marble plucked from the rubble of the World Trade Center. While helping drag the clas- sified pieces into the chancery’s dilapidated foyer guard- ed by a Marine post of cracked and bullet-holed protec- J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 65 As we neared Peshawar, the adobe refugee camps that once housed tens of thousands of Afghans were strangely quiet.