The Holy Month of Ramadan

NATO is preparing to leave Afghanistan, although not fully for several years yet.  The schedules have been set, and the international community established in Afghanistan is working feverishly to ensure that the social infrastructure is solidly in place before the country is left to its own devices. 

International troops are continuing to train the Afghan military and the police, and diplomats and humanitarian groups are busy doing what they can to ensure that Afghan authorities and state employees are fully aware of their responsibilities.  To their offices, and to the people whom they are meant to serve.


The Taliban too are busy in anticipation of the green light for re-occupation once the foreign intruders have departed.  Whether or not a formal arrangement with the government of President Hamid Karzai takes place for power-sharing with his "brothers", the Taliban, there will be a well-entrenched and -established Taliban presence in the new-old Afghanistan.

Events like the sending of a female athlete to compete at the London Olympics will become a fuzzy dream of female accomplishment once Afghanistan is back on its own Islamist foundation without interference from the West.  Those Afghans who came from abroad where they settled themselves and their families as successful businessmen and entrepreneurs in the West, returning to help their country turn itself into a democracy are dwindling in numbers now.

Some came back to Afghanistan in solidarity with the new Western-backed government of Afghanistan that had pledged itself to co-operation with the West in transforming itself into a modern state guaranteeing equality to Afghan women.  Some of them became district governors.  Some of them are now very dead.

The Taliban have put Afghan government officials and community leaders in the cross-hairs of their rifle sights for an awfully long time.  As a symbol of their disagreement with the government.  In the direction in which it takes the country and its people.  Without the sanctity of Sharia law.  Enabling women to forget their place in an Islamist country.

From July 13 forward, a four-day period, a number of prominent government figures have been eliminated violently by the Taliban.  First, a provincial women's affairs chief in eastern Afghanistan who died in a car bomb.  Followed by the mayor of a western town, gunned down returning home from evening prayers.

And then a prominent member of parliament assassinated in a suicide attack that also happened to take the lives of 18 other people at the festivities that had been planned for his daughter's wedding.  Followed by a district police chief in Kandahar who was killed in a drive-by shooting.  Then a cabinet minister and another provincial governor escaped uninjured when the motorcade was bombed.

A district chief in northern Kunduz province also escaped, leaving his vehicle to shop, just before the car blew up.  Perhaps next time.  And then, on Sunday the governor of Chak district in Wardak province, Mohammad Ismail Wafa, shot to death.  His young son died alongside him.

With the onset of Ramadan, that most ancient and holy of times for Muslims, dignitaries are expected to be present among the people.  Which will make it relatively easier for the Taliban to target them, since they have vowed that they plan to continue violence despite the time of fasting and prayer for the devout. 

The Taliban, of course, are very devout Islamists.