- News>
- Archives
Bombers leave Kabul skies, shops open shutters
Shopkeepers opened shutters, some bold women removed their head-to-toe burqa veils, but with armed troops stationed at street corners in the Afghan capital, residents found it hard to relax.
Shopkeepers opened shutters, some bold women removed their head-to-toe burqa veils, but with armed troops stationed at street corners in the Afghan capital, residents found it hard to relax.
After 38 days of US bombing, Kabul residents awoke without fear. The clear blue autumn skies were empty of the jets that have rained death in the US drive to topple the Taliban and hunt down Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden.
Opposition Northern Alliance soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders manned checkpoints through the night, flagging down the few motorists who ventured out on to the empty streets.
At dawn, soldiers set out on foot patrols around the battered city, still looking for the remnants of Taliban forces who fled the city en masse on Monday night after opposition troops broke through their front lines to the north. ''Everything is different today, it's 100 percent changed,'' said 35-year-old tyre seller Sarfraz Hostai.
''We had so many problems before, but now we are free and we are waiting for our new government.''
The Northern Alliance had swept into the capital almost before the dust had settled from the sandals of retreating Taliban fighters.
But that advance came in defiance of US appeals to stay out of Kabul and the emotions of residents were in turmoil --torn between nervousness at the dizzyingly swift change in administration and elation at new-found freedoms.
In Foruj-Ga market, one woman was working in a shop, wearing a black headscarf that revealed her face rather than the head-to-toe burqa veil mandated by the Taliban, who also banned women from working form the day they swept into town in 1996.
Bureau Report
Opposition Northern Alliance soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders manned checkpoints through the night, flagging down the few motorists who ventured out on to the empty streets.
At dawn, soldiers set out on foot patrols around the battered city, still looking for the remnants of Taliban forces who fled the city en masse on Monday night after opposition troops broke through their front lines to the north. ''Everything is different today, it's 100 percent changed,'' said 35-year-old tyre seller Sarfraz Hostai.
''We had so many problems before, but now we are free and we are waiting for our new government.''
The Northern Alliance had swept into the capital almost before the dust had settled from the sandals of retreating Taliban fighters.
But that advance came in defiance of US appeals to stay out of Kabul and the emotions of residents were in turmoil --torn between nervousness at the dizzyingly swift change in administration and elation at new-found freedoms.
In Foruj-Ga market, one woman was working in a shop, wearing a black headscarf that revealed her face rather than the head-to-toe burqa veil mandated by the Taliban, who also banned women from working form the day they swept into town in 1996.
Bureau Report