Kabul – Rocket Rains

Winter is usually quiet months of bomb attacks. But it seems the formula does not work for this year.

This week is the worst of this year in term of security in the capital. In recent days there had been several fatal bomb blasts all over the capital. It had been part of the daily life here.

On November 27, when I was just walking on the street from the Afghan bodybuilding about 7:30 a.m, suddenly I heard a big blast. I am already used to this kind of blast or that kind of rocket rocks; I usually had no any more surprised reaction to this kind of happening. But I usually stay in my room when all of these things happened – in a safe place. Now, I am on road and the blast was heard much louder and shocking. I ran for some steps, but became completely normal again not more than a minute after.

The blast happened somewhere near the Pakistan embassy, about 4 kilometer from the place I initially heard the blast. The target was a military vehicle in heavily secured area of Wazir Akbar Khan, where many embassies and foreign aid organizations are located.

December 4, another suicide attack was aimed to a NATO convoy near the airport. No NATO soldiers were killed, but 22 Afghans were wounded by the attack. I didn’t go by myself to the site, because I felt bored, really bored, with these kinds of blasts.

The next day, December 5, early morning in Chihilsitoon area was rocked by a car bomb. The suicide bomber slammed his car into a bus full of Afghan soldiers and killed 13 innocent people altogether. Taliban was proud to proclaim their success, welcoming the visit of the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The success of the attacks sacrificing their own countrymen was celebrated at night. Rocket rains. Yes, several rockets fell down in several regions of Kabul. The first one was 11 p.m., I was busy of telephoning with my friend and didn’t hear anything. Some others might fell in the middle of the night, but those two, which I hated very much, rocked me from my bed in early morning.

A week with several bomb blasts and rocket rains, will this be the start of a new daily happening that Kabulis have to start to adjust with? People said that the higher intensity of these attacks was because of the coming of cold winter, in which suicide blasts are supposed to be rarer. The season of blasts ends up soon, so the fighters were rushing to explode themselves to get tickets to heaven. People said that the next bomb season would be in summer, which they called it as ’summer offensive’.

I don’t know exactly. But I just hope that this winter will pass calmly and peacefully.