Afghan men walk along Qargha dam at the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan November 12, 2005. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

Karzai Supporters May Dominate Afghanistan's New Parliament
From Associated Press November 13, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan — Supporters of Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared to have won a majority of seats in the country's September parliamentary election, observers said Saturday, as final results were announced amid continued violence.

The poll was hailed as a success in the country's slow march toward democracy, although its legitimacy has been undermined by suspected ballot-box stuffing that led to the dismissal of 50 election workers. There is also alarm that more than half of the winners are former regional strongmen.

Nearly all winning candidates ran as independents, making it difficult to determine where power will lie in the 249-seat legislature. But Western diplomats and other political analysts said it appeared that supporters of the U.S.-backed Karzai dominate.

"The government has the support of more than 50% in the parliament," said Ali Amiri, a respected political analyst who writes on Afghan affairs. "There are some small opposition groups, but nothing big enough to challenge Karzai."

The parliamentary poll was seen as the final formal step toward Afghanistan's having a representative government after a quarter of a century of war that left more than 1 million people dead. The $159-million election was funded mainly by the United States and other Western countries.

Many had hoped the election would sideline Taliban rebels, but there has been no sign of a letup in the insurgency. On Saturday, militants pulled a deputy provincial governor from his car and fatally shot him. Later, a pair of insurgents killed a former district chief as he prayed in a mosque. Three police officers also were killed Saturday.

The country's death toll from fighting neared 1,500 for the year, the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster in 2001. This year's death toll includes 86 U.S. troops.

A number of Karzai's supporters who won election have violent pasts, including Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful militia leader accused of war crimes by Human Rights Watch, and Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a former Taliban commander who has reconciled with the government.

Another winner was the former Taliban leader who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues during the fundamentalists' reign.

Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said more than half of the winners are regional strongmen, prompting fear that they will block efforts to reform government and bring to justice those responsible for years of bloodshed.

Despite such concerns, the election was welcomed by many, especially women, who have never had a strong voice in Afghan politics. A quarter of the parliamentary seats are reserved for women, and 68 were named lawmakers.

"The women in parliament will be a voice for the half of this country who have been silent for so long," said Safia Siddiqi, a winning candidate from the eastern city of Jalalabad. Parliament is expected to convene in the third week of December, Karzai's spokesman, Karim Rahimi, said last week.

Final Afghan election results out – BBC

The process of counting and checking results from the parliamentary and provincial elections in Afghanistan in September has finally been completed. An election official told the BBC that the election commission had certified results from Kandahar, the final province to be completed.

President Hamid Karzai's brother, Abdul Qayyum Karzai, has been elected to the lower house of parliament. Meanwhile, councils are voting for their upper house representatives.

Results from the September election had already been published from 33 other provinces, but the results from Kandahar were delayed while officials checked fraud allegations. The joint Afghan and United Nations election commission has now also certified results for the Kuchi - or nomad - population.

The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says the length of time it has taken to check fraud allegations and finalise the election results has left many Afghans confused and suspicious.

In Sunday's voting, the provincial councils that were elected in September are choosing representatives for the upper house of parliament. Each body has to vote for two people to sit in the 102-member upper house, or Meshrano Jirga.

This is the next stage Afghanistan's fledgling democracy, nearly three years after the fall of the Taleban. Kandahar will vote for its representatives at a later stage. Helmand province is not voting on Sunday either.

Newly-elected provincial officials have to choose two-thirds of the members in the upper house of the new parliament from among their number. The others will be appointed by President Karzai.

Afghanistan's new National Assembly taking shape Provinces elect representatives for upper house - - Carlotta Gall, New York Times, November 13, 2005

Kabul, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan moved closer to forming its new National Assembly on Saturday, electing provincial representatives to the upper house of parliament, or the Meshrano Jirga.

In 32 of the nation's 34 provinces, members of the provincial councils chose two representatives from each council to sit in the Meshrano Jirga, or House of Elders, said Sultan Baheen, a spokesman for the election board.

Two provinces in southern Afghanistan, Helmand and Kandahar, will hold elections in coming days, he said. Officials said they hope the country's first elected legislature in 30 years will convene as planned on Dec. 18.

The election board announced Saturday that it had certified the last results of the Sept. 18 voting, which selected the 249 members of the directly elected lower house, the Wolesi Jirga, or the House of the People, and of the 34 provincial councils.

Those last results were from Kandahar province, the home of President Hamid Karzai, where three winning candidates were investigated for electoral irregularities. Many results from the September elections had been delayed, largely because of numerous cases of election fraud.

On Saturday, the provincial council in Kabul chose a former mujahedeen commander and trained architect, Muhammad Afzal Ahmadzai, 47, to hold a seat in the Meshrano Jirga, with 18 votes from the 29-member council. He is a member of the opposition bloc.

A school headmistress from the Shiite Hazara ethnic minority, Nasreen Parsa, 38, came in second, with 10 votes. To complete the upper house, Karzai must still appoint 34 representatives, or one-third of the 102-member Meshrano Jirga.

Half of them will be women, who have been guaranteed 25 percent of the seats in the assembly under the Constitution. Based on early analyses of the Sept. 18 elections, the two houses of the National Assembly will be dominated by religious conservatives and jihadist figures, who gained prominence in the last two decades of war. They may form a strong base of opposition to Karzai.

Saarc ministers okay Afghan membership - By Mizan Rahman 12 November 2005

DHAKA — Saarc Foreign Ministers meeting in Dhaka yesterday agreed in principle to grant forum’s membership to Afghanistan but a member-state strongly stood opposed to China’s observer status.

This came during an “informal meeting” of the ‘Council of Ministers’ comprising foreign ministers of Saarc member countries, who formally met at Hotel Sheraton yesterday for a last-ditch deliberation before their top leaders sit for the forum’s summit meet today. A Saarc delegation source told newsmen that India vehemently opposed the “observer” status of China, proposed by Pakistan and supported by five other members — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. “As the foreign ministers wanted to refer the case of China to the summit leaders, India did not agree either,” said the source.

However, all the seven foreign ministers agreed in principle to grant Saarc membership to Afghanistan. Afghanistan earlier applied for membership to the current Saarc chair, Pakistan. If the council of ministers formally takes a decision at its meeting, it will be placed for approval by the Saarc heads of state and government meeting on November 12-13. If Afghanistan is awarded Saarc membership, the forum charter will need to be amended to take the troubled country in.

A South Asian diplomat said that if the summit leaders finally agreed on Kabul’s plea, next Saarc summit in India might grant the membership to Afghanistan.

Five killed in 'Taleban' attacks – BBC

Suspected Taleban militants have carried out a number of attacks across Afghanistan, officials say.

In Khost, close to the Pakistani border, militants attacked a police station killing one policeman and injuring five others. In southern Helmand province an ex-district chief was shot dead while at prayer in a mosque, and two policemen were killed in an ambush. President Hamid Karzai appealed on Saturday for an end to fighting.

At a meeting of government leaders and security officials from around Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai said: "It is our wish that all our countrymen...join this (reconciliation) program...to give up destroying their country and participate in its reconstruction."

On Friday a funeral was held for the deputy governor of southern Nimroz province, Namatullah Yusufzai, who was killed in an ambush on his car while travelling to Kabul to attend the security conference. More than 1,400 people have died in violence in Afghanistan this year.

Karzai calls on Taliban to join reconciliation process - Sat Nov 12,

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday urged Taliban fighters and other militants to abandon their insurgency against his government and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and join a national reconciliation process.

This year has been one of the worst for violence in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted from power by U.S.-backed forces four years ago. Some 1,100 people have died, including more than 50 U.S. military personnel, so far in 2005.

"Our expectation from all of our countrymen, whether outside Afghanistan or at home... is to join this programme of peace... and give up the destruction of their country," Karzai told a conference on reconciliation broadcast live on state-television.

Afghanistan held parliamentary elections in September, a year after Karzai won a presidential election that marked a first step toward establishing democracy in the turbulent country. Riven by tribal and ethnic divides, the main common denominator in Afghan nation is Islam.

And many of the majority Pashtuns share the same conservative views as Taliban fighters, whose support for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda triggered the U.S. attack and subsequent deployment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Seen as a guarantor of international financial support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan after a quarter century of conflict, Karzai said making peace with the insurgents was vital to the country's development and reconstruction.

Handpicked by Washington as an interim leader after the Taliban were driven from Kabul in late 2001, Karzai first held out an olive branch to the Islamist militants two years ago.

But, so far, only a handful of middle ranking Taliban officials have joined the mainstream. The most senior of them is Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister who surrendered to U.S.-led forces and is now free after spending years in U.S. custody. Muttawakil, along with several other former Taliban figures participated in Saturday's conference together with cabinet ministers and provincial officials.

A deputy governor from a southern province was gunned down in a suspected Taliban ambush while traveling to Kabul on Thursday for the conference, a security official said.

Former President Sibghatullah Mojadeddi said the insurgency along Afghanistan's southern flank was due to foreign interference, in a veiled reference to Pakistan where many Taliban fighters took refuge after their defeat.

Now head of the Peace Commission, Mojadeddi said he would push for the release of hundreds more Taliban fighters. He said the commission had helped secure the release of some 275 from U.S. custody in Afghanistan and eight others from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay this year.

No survivors in Afghan air crash – BBC

A Soviet-built cargo plane has crashed 35km (22 miles) north of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The BBC's Andrew North at the scene says there were no survivors. Eight to 10 people were on board.

The plane had been chartered by a Pakistani company to take supplies to the main US airbase at Bagram. The cause of the crash, which occurred in the Farza area of the Shomali plains, is not yet known. Our correspondent says the plane was almost completely destroyed, with wreckage strewn over three blackened hills.

The plane was owned by a Pakistani company and had been chartered by a US company to carry supplies for the US military. It is not clear if bad weather was a cause of the crash. There had been some rain in the area but our correspondent says visibility was reasonable.

Initial reports had said the plane was a C-130 transport plane. Police official, Ghulam Rasool, told Associated Press "We have recovered five bodies. They are in many pieces. There is no one alive."

Isaf spokesman, Lt Col Riccardo Cristoni, said the plane had taken off from Kabul. Afghanistan has suffered a number of air crashes this year, mostly helicopters, but a plane belonging to the private Kam Air crashed in mountains near Kabul in February, killing all 104 people on board.

EDITORIAL: North Afghanistan could feed the whole country

via Afghan Press Monitor (No 192, 11 Nov 05) - published by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting
(The Kabul Times, November 10, 2005) Afghanistan is an agricultural country with 75 per cent of its population engaged in farming and animal husbandry. The country is broadly divided in two by the Hindu Kush range, the northern part being more fertile and less rugged than the south. Unfortunately, however, insufficient attention has been paid to boosting agriculture in the northern half of the country, probably because of the perception that the northerners produce Karakul pelts, carpets, oil-seeds and grains, while the poor inhabitants of the south live hand to mouth and thus deserve more attention. Another consideration is industrialisation in parts of the north, tor instance, the mills and the cement factory at Pul-e-Khumri, the sugar refinery at Baghlan, the oil refinery and soap plants in Kunduz, and oil refineries, machine tools and raisin-processing plants in Mazar-e-Sharif are a few examples. However, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the last 23 years of civil war, during which thieves posing as mujahedin dismantled valuable machines and sold the parts for scrap in Pakistan. The oil refinery in Kunduz and the cement plant at Pul-e-Khumri have reportedly resumed production, but little is known about the others. (The Kabul Times is a state-run paper published in English every other day.)

Karzai’s Afghan Protectors - Locals rather than Americans are now providing security for President Karzai, but some wonder if they are up to the task. By Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 194, 13-Nov-05)

Gone are the burly Americans kitted out with M4 rifles with telescopic sights and night-vision goggles who were charged with guarding Afghan president Hamed Karzai. Gone too are the armoured Hummer vehicles prominently parked outside the presidential palace. Even the super-efficient sniffer dogs that patrolled the area menacingly seem to have vanished overnight.

In their place stand Afghan security men, armed only with aged Kalashnikovs. The only dogs around are a pack of mangy animals that cringe at the sight of an approaching visitor.

For the first time since a wave of assassinations hit his government in 2002, Karzai has decided to entrust his safety to an all-Afghan bodyguard unit. The decision to sideline his American security service should earn the president some popularity points at home. But it is not clear whether it will make him any safer.

"These [Afghan] bodyguards have enough equipment and training to provide adequate security for the president," insisted Khaleeq Ahmad, deputy head of the president's press office.

Some sources close to the presidential palace aren’t so sure, noting that DynCorp, the private security contractor hired by the US Department of State under a 50-million-dollar contract seems to have removed vehicles, weapons and other security equipment in addition to its personnel.

DynCorp did not respond to numerous requests for interviews on the subject. But presidential spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi reiterated that the Afghan bodyguards had been well trained by DynCorp and had enough equipment to be able to do the job. “There is no cause for concern,” said Karimi.

DynCorp had been looking after Karzai’s security since late 2002, when he survived an assassination attempt in Kandahar. Earlier in 2002, two prominent members of the then interim government, Vice-President Haji Abdul Qadir and Minister of Aviation and Tourism Abdul Rahman, were assassinated, and Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim narrowly escaped an attempt on his life.

The firm, which is believed to have close ties to the Bush administration, was recently awarded a multi-million dollar contract by the State Department to train and equip the Afghan police force.

The use of Americans to protect the president proved unpopular among Afghans, who saw it yet more confirmation of their view of Karzai as little more than a US puppet.

his resentment was compounded by the aggressive and at times confrontational behaviour of DynCorp employees. One BBC correspondent reported seeing a DynCorp guard slap an Afghan minister, and the State Department was forced to issue a formal rebuke to the firm after a series of such incidents. Both Karzai’s supporters and detractors see the decision to replace the Americans as an open bid for public support.

"Many times the president was at meetings with tribal elders and other influential people. They would tell him to get rid of the foreign bodyguards. He finally accepted their suggestion," said deputy spokesman Khaleeq.

“By having American bodyguards around him, Karzai created a question in people’s minds about his independence,” said Mohammad Hassan Wolesmal, political analyst and editor of he weekly Jarida-ye-Milli-ye-Afghan (Afghan National Magazine).

“Perhaps in making this decision, Karzai is bowing to the people’s will.” But others said it would take more than replacing his foreign bodyguards to demonstrate his independence.

"Using foreign bodyguards was an insult to Afghans," said Bashir Ahmad Beijan, deputy head of the Afghanistan National Congress party. He thinks the damage has already been done. "In our opinion, Karzai can't make a decision anyway," he said. "He does whatever the Americans want him to."

Providing security in Afghanistan remains a difficult task. In August, 2004, 12 people were killed when DynCorp’s offices in Kabul were bombed, and a month later Karzai escaped yet another assassination attempt, this time in Gardez, during his presidential election campaign.

Now, all but a handful of the 300 DynCorp staff who protected Karzai for three years have left the country, taking their equipment with them. And while their duties included training their Afghan replacements, many fear the new guards may not be up to scratch.

“I am not 100 per cent sure that the Afghan bodyguards will protect Karzai in critical situations,” said Fazel Rahman Oria, political analyst and editor of Payam, a bi-monthly magazine.

The switch to an all-Afghan service has its own special challenges in a country as full of ethnic, tribal and political tensions as Afghanistan. Sources at the palace say that the guards were selected from among all of Afghanistan’s ethnic groups, and there are some who think this may be a mistake.

“Karzai should have chosen his bodyguards from among his own tribesmen,” said Wolesmal. “Otherwise he may have someone among his guards who could be a threat to him." He pointed to the case of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.

Khaleeq refused to divulge the number of Afghan bodyguards protecting the president, citing security considerations, but media reports put the number at approximately 600.

The switch to Afghan guards will undoubtedly save some money. DynCorp’s security personnel were part of the foreign elite which earns large salaries and leads what Afghans consider an inordinately privileged lifestyle. The Afghan guards will receive only a fraction of the pay and will not require housing allowances, security expenses or per diems.

The public are also happy about the departure of Karzai's American bodyguards, although they are slow to forgive Karzai his long dependence on them. "Whenever Karzai talked about freedom…, I just laughed and said to myself, ‘who’s that standing behind you?’” said Gul Ahmad, 65, a resident of Kabul.

"I have never heard from my forefathers of any president being protected by soldiers from another country." Abdul Baseer Saeed is an IWPR reporter in Kabul.

Profile: Malalai Joya - BBC

Malalai Joya, one of the prominent winners in Afghanistan's landmark parliamentary elections, is an outspoken critic of the country's warlords. "I hope by being a member of parliament I will be able to serve my people, especially the women," Ms Joya told reporters. "I will do my best to stop the warlords and criminals from building any laws that will jeopardise the rights of Afghan people, especially the women."

The 27-year-old women's literacy and health worker will take her seat in the 249-seat National Assembly, or Wolesi Jirga, representing the remote province of Farah. Ms Joya, daughter of a former medical student who was wounded fighting the Soviets, rose to prominence for denouncing warlords at a constitutional forum two years ago.

She received a number of death threats after interrupting the loya jirga (grand council) with her criticism of the mujahideen, fighters who fought against the Soviet Union and then among themselves. Ms Joya told the constitutional convention the mujahideen were responsible for Afghanistan's civil war which only ended when the Taleban seized power in 1996.

Ms Joya continued to press her case against the former rulers of Afghanistan - last year she, together with a delegation of 50 tribal elders, persuaded President Hamid Karzai to dismiss a provincial governor who was a former Taleban commander. She has survived at least four assassination attempts since her speech at the constitutional convention. According to reports, Ms Joya employs armed guards and travels incognito.

"I know that if not today, then probably tomorrow, I will be physically annihilated," Ms Joya told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme. "But the voice of protest will continue, because it is the voice of the people of my country."

Ms Joya has said she is used to intimidation after being threatened "again and again" by the Taleban when she started her work in the country in 1998 after returning from Pakistan and Iran where her family had emigrated during the civil war.

During that time she established an orphanage and health clinic, and was soon a vocal opponent of the Taleban. However, Ms Joya was spurred into action when she first saw the capital, Kabul, and how it had been destroyed. "I saw the misery of "When those people put their trust in me and elected me as their representative, I decided to bring their suffering to the world's attention - so that the world would know that even though the men and women of Afghanistan have had to live in ignorance and poverty for many years, they don't trust the mujahideen."

Ms Joya said the government with the support of international forces should "tackle the warlords with great determination". "These people are snakes in the sleeves of the government. Only if the government tackles them head-on will we see a brighter future.

"If they don't there will be more bitter and dark days ahead." During the civil war, Ms Joya first fled with her family to Iran. Then they moved to Pakistan, where she started teaching refugees to read and write. She is married to a Kabul-based student of agriculture and has six sisters and three brothers.

Ambassador shares Afghans' greatest fear - A premature U.S. withdrawal is the thing that worries them most, official tells audience of 200 - By Sally Connell - San Luis Obispo Tribune / November 11, 2005

Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States told a crowd of 200 at Cal Poly on Thursday that Afghans fear any talk of the United States leaving the country prematurely.

Said Tayeb Jawad said the country clearly remembers its descent into a Taliban-led world of extremism after the United States disengaged from Afghanistan at the end of the Soviet occupation.

He told the crowd of Cal Poly students, faculty and area residents that the southwest Asian country needs the United States' help to improve its health care system, train its army and police and rebuild infrastructure.

"The biggest concern that Afghans have about the United States' presence in Afghanistan is that the presence might be short lived," he said during an interview before the speech.

Jawad appeared on campus at the special invitation of Maliha Zulfacar, a Cal Poly ethnic studies professor born in Afghanistan, as part of the campus' celebration of International Education Week.

"Cal Poly students really live on a big island," Zulfacar said. "But when students hear about what is going on in other parts of the world, they get concerned, they get involved."

Jawad said that women are dying in childbirth at incredible rates. Afghanistan has one of the highest infant mortality rates and the lowest life expectancies of any nation in the world.

But he also said the country has made great strides since the United States went to war in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, the country's former Islamic rulers who had strong ties to terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

Jawad returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after living abroad for 20 years. He was appointed ambassador in 2003 after serving various posts in the government.

Jawad spoke about advancements made in the rights of Afghan women. He said more women are attending school and 29 percent of the Parliament members are women, but there is tremendous catching up to do.

"You can provide all the rights you want to in a constitution for women," he said. "But that won't do enough unless you provide education to the women, enable the women to have an income."

Zulfacar met with Cal Poly President Warren Baker and Jawad and asked Baker to support the idea of two English-speaking Afghan women studying engineering at Cal Poly, fulfilling their lifelong dream. "We said we'd help to see that gets done," Baker said after Jawad's speech.

Afghanistan: Musicians Struggling To Revive Classical Heritage After Taliban Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Decades of war and the Taliban's five-year ban on music took their toll on Afghan classical music. Musicians have been trying to resuscitate the art since the end of Taliban rule. But they face serious economic and artistic challenges -- including the threat of possible attack by Taliban fighters if they perform in provincial areas. Through interviews and field recordings, RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz has documented attempts to revive Afghan music since the collapse of the Taliban regime nearly four years ago.

Prague, 11 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Three warring Afghan militia factions in Wardak Province put their disputes aside long enough in early 2002 to celebrate a feast together in the district of Chak.

Hundreds gathered to hear the first performance there of Afghanistan's national dance, the "Atan-i-Mili," since the Taliban silenced music five years earlier.

But only one elderly musician was found to play a double-sided Afghan drum called a dhol. There were no others to play the complex rhythmical counterpoints of the dance. And there was no one to play the traditional melody on the raspy, flute-like surnai. It was a sparse sound testifying to the state of music in southern Afghanistan immediately after Taliban rule.

Instead, militia fighters fired their AK-47s to the drumbeat in the way Western DJs use old records to perform "scratch" rhythms. Within two years, after many Afghan musicians returned from lives as refugees in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, the sound of a full group playing the Atan-i-Mili would be common in Afghanistan again.

Life today remains difficult and dangerous for Afghan musicians. An ethnic Turkmen singer named Quarab Nazar was gunned down recently along with six of his backing group after performing at a wedding party in northern Jowzjan Province. Police say the attackers were Taliban fighters. The Taliban also is blamed for other recent attacks against musicians in the south and east of the country. Still, classical Afghan musicians want to breath life back into their heritage after decades of war and repression.

Afghan music is an oral tradition. Students can trace the lineage of their knowledge through their teachers directly to the ancient masters. Folk melodies and the poetry of the ancient Afghan royal courts merged with elements of northern India's classical music in the 1860s when Afghan ruler Amir Sher Ali Khan brought Hindustani masters to Kabul as court musicians. So Hindustani and Afghan music are cousins, but with their own unique characteristics. As an oral tradition, young Afghan musicians are meant to take tutelage for years under a single master -- an "ustad," whose pupils become their legacy.

Those oral traditions were uprooted along with the millions of Afghans displaced by war and factional fighting during the 1980s and '90s. Ustads and their students were separated as they joined the throngs of refugees fleeing to Pakistan or Iran. Musicians who remained in Afghanistan faced repression by some mujahedin factions as early as 1992. The Taliban broadened the restrictions into a total ban against performing or listening to music.

One classical master who stayed in Afghanistan through all those years is Attiqullah Sangin. Now in his late 50s, he has played an Afghan lute -- called a rabab -- since he was 12 years old.

Considered the national instrument of Afghanistan, the rabab was the lute of the ancient royal courts. Its neck and body are carved from a single piece of hollowed wood. A tiny ivory or camel bone bridge rests on the face of the instrument, which is covered with the skin of a goat.

As a teenager, Sangin studied under Afghanistan's most famous 20th-century rabab virtuoso -- Ustad Mohammad Omar. Ustad Omar died in 1980 without witnessing the havoc wreaked against Afghan music. Sangin now is among a handful of musicians who carried direct knowledge from the revered rabab master through those turbulent times. He says the Taliban era was the most difficult as an artist.

"They would certainly punish me if they found out I was practicing or even listening to recordings," Sangin said. "Most of our musicians and singers went to Pakistan and Iran during those years. Fewer people remained here in Afghanistan. So we were not thinking much about music anymore. The Taliban had stopped music -- even in the context of [improvisational religious performances]."

Sangin watched the Taliban's "morality and virtue" police lock musicians into metal cargo containers because of their musical training. He says the Taliban would not hesitate to kill a musician caught performing or practicing an instrument.

"It was very hard for me. Music is like fire. If you just keep blowing air onto it, it will be fresh. Otherwise, it will soon die out," Sangin said. "During the whole five years, I left my rabab hanging from an arch. I couldn't play it [publicly] because I was afraid. My entire house had been destroyed [in earlier fighting]. We were staying in another house that we had rented. So it was impossible to practice [in that building without the risk of being punished]."

Still, Sangin says his need to play music was so strong that he sometimes risked death in order to practice in secluded places. "Secretly I used to play. You know, one can't just practice rabab in only five minutes," Sangin said. "It is an instrument that requires a lot of practice -- at least an hour or so at a time. Anyway, I was practicing sometimes. But only in secrecy so that I would not get into any trouble."

The rabab Sangin now plays is a masterpiece of workmanship that narrowly escaped destruction by the Taliban. It is one of just three instruments from the old Radio Kabul collection that was not smashed by the Taliban. It was hidden -- literally buried beneath the ground for years -- along with a harmonium and a dhol that also survived.

Mohammad Rasul was a production engineer at Radio Kabul when the Taliban destroyed the other instruments -- including an expensive piano that had been rebuilt by an Afghan master craftsman during the 1960s.

By keeping secret his skills and aspirations as a classically trained tambur player, he managed to keep his job when the Taliban transformed Radio Kabul into the Voice of Shari'a.

"At that time, I used to record songs without instruments -- national Islamic songs. So I worked here [for Voice of Shari'a]," Rasul said. "I didn't become a refugee. I didn't go anywhere. So I stayed here. I've done my work under any regime -- any government. It is my country. I'm not afraid of anything except God. I have served my country and my people."

Rasul practices the song "Let's Go to Mazar, Mullah Momad Jan" on his tambur in the former Radio Kabul studios, now owned by Radio Afghanistan. The instrument is similar in size and shape to a sitar. But on closer examination, rather than the raised metal frets of an Indian sitar, the tambur's frets are fashioned from strands of animal gut tied around the neck.

Like a sitar, there are also about dozen "sympathetic" strings. They are tuned to the traditional Afghan melody and vibrate without being touched, ringing from the harmonic overtones within the resonating chamber.

Rasul wears a metal plectrum on his right index finger to pluck the main melody strings using a technique similar to a sitar player. Sangin the rabab master recalls a feeling of disbelief when he got together with other musicians to play for the first time after the collapse of the Taliban.

"The first thing I did was to shave my beard. We had all been forced to grow long beards under the Taliban," Sangin said. "Then, three days after the Taliban left Kabul, I went to the studios of Kabul Radio. I found out that [the singer] Aziz Gaznawi was the head of the radio. And there was Nairez and Mudeer Rasool. Altogether, there were about five or six people there -- [and four of us were musicians.] We started to perform for some radio programs. It was like dreaming. When we first sat in front of a microphone, we thought we were still dreaming. Four musicians playing together! We felt like we were coming back to life again!"

Sangin says the freedom to play music has rekindled interest in the rabab among young Afghans. But he is concerned about the future of other classical Afghan traditions.

"Right now, the situation with musicians is very good [compared to the time of the Taliban]. But we don't have enough singers," Sangin said. "Those singers we had have become old. Many of our ustads have died. Our [traditional] music is not getting any encouragement. Young people are mostly interested in Western music. They are not very interested in our [traditional] music."

He is especially concerned about the future in Afghan music of an instrument called the dilruba -- a bowed string instrument with a haunting, mournful sound.

"We no longer have many masters. So many ustads have died," Sangin said. "Some of them left [the country and have not returned]. We only have one master dilruba player in Afghanistan right now, and he is old. When he dies, all that [knowledge] will be lost."

Some of the old masters who survived by moving to the West are returning to pass on their knowledge. Among them is the famous tabla player Ustad Mohammad Asef. He is in his 60s and has lived in London for the past 14 years. Now, he has returned to his homeland to teach music for one year at Kabul University. Younger musicians also are returning with music they studied in places like Peshawar, Pakistan.

But many find their houses have been destroyed. And the income for musicians in Afghanistan often is barely enough to pay rent.

One man from a musical family who has found success in Kabul after returning from Pakistan is Ahmad Shah Ayubi. He is the son of the late Ustad Mohammad Ayubi -- a famous Afghan harmonium maker from Kabul who rebuilt the piano at Radio Kabul that was eventually destroyed by the Taliban.

Ahmad Shah Ayubi continues his father's trade -- building and repairing harmoniums and other instruments at a shop he set up recently in the mostly destroyed musician's quarter of Kabul's old city. He says the repair business has been particularly good in the aftermath of the Taliban.

"I have repaired maybe 500 harmoniums here [in Kabul] and in Pakistan," Ayubi said. "I was in Pakistan [until] two years ago. Most people took their harmoniums with them to Pakistan [when they left Afghanistan]. So I repaired them there. And when we returned from Pakistan, I opened this shop here [in Kabul.] I like my business. And most Afghan people like music -- especially the harmonium."
Ayubi's confidence in the future is bolstered by the presence of his oldest son at the shop. His son is learning in the traditional way about harmoniums and other instruments -- and he is absorbing the classical Afghan melodies that his father plays. (Mustafa Sediqi of RFE/RL's Afghan Service contributed to this story from Kabul and Prague. Photographs by Ron Synovitz)

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