Bombings threaten Kabul boom

By Andrew North BBC correspondent in Kabul

Until this week's two suicide bomb attacks against British and Canadian peacekeeping troops in Kabul, the Afghan capital had been relatively calm.

Business is booming, the good times are back - but can they last?

For the past year, it has also been enjoying something of an economic boom.

While insecurity and violence have stalled reconstruction efforts in other parts of the country, particularly the south and east, Kabul has been seeing the opening of new factories, hotels and other major businesses.

The shops are full of consumer goods, as well as day-to-day basics.

The streets are clogged with traffic for large parts of the day.

That is not to say that the city has discarded its war-torn looks.

Shattered, holed and bullet-scarred buildings are still a feature of Kabul, especially in its western areas.

And the city's infrastructure is under huge strain because of the hundreds of thousands of newly returned refugees and other Afghans moving to the city to find work.

Changing tactics

But compared to the recent past, these have been relatively good times.

Economy is taking off - even with the reminder of wreckage around

What some fear, though, is that these attacks and threats of more to come mean an end to this calm and perhaps even a slowing of the regeneration of the capital?

Security has been tightened at all Afghan Government institutions and at the compounds of Isaf peacekeeping troops, the United Nations and international aid agencies.

People who claim to speak for the Taleban have said they carried out both attacks, describing them as part of a new 'jihad' or holy war against Afghanistan's transitional government and its supporters.

"We were worried there would be new violence here, after the loya jirga," admitted one government official, referring to the grand assembly that agreed on a new constitution for Afghanistan earlier this month.

President Hamid Karzai signed the document at the start of this week, the day before the first suicide attack, on a Canadian patrol.

One reason for added concern is the nature of the attacks and what the Canadian military commander here admits is a change in tactics by insurgents opposed to the Karzai government.

Only rarely have they used suicide bombings as a weapon in the past.

Before this week, there had been only two such attacks in Kabul since the Taleban government was overthrown two years ago.

Still relatively stable?

Violence resumed after the adoption of the constitution

"It has created a climate of fear among the people," said Dr Siddiq, a resident of Kabul's Karte-Naw area.

"We used to hear about the suicide attacks in the Middle East, but to know they are happening here is shocking.

I have advised my children not to go anywhere near the Isaf and Afghan forces."

Wahid, a shopkeeper in the central district of Shahr-e Naw, admits he is worried. "This will affect my business."

He says he only returned to Afghanistan last year, after years as a refugee in Pakistan, in response to a call by President Karzai for Afghans to return home.

But some are more sanguine.

"It's worrying," says one prominent Afghan businessman who returned soon after the fall of the Taleban in December 2001.

"But it is not going to change things immediately."

"Things are still relatively stable in the capital," he says.

Prosperity and poverty go hand-in hand in Kabul's streets

Attitudes have changed dramatically in the past year, he maintains.

Many people are no longer focused on day-to-day needs.

"They're saying things like: 'Can we get a better dress for Soraya's wedding, or why don't we get another mobile phone.'"

What would cause concern, the businessman admits, "if the Taleban and these other groups start attacking investors and new projects".

Vulnerable

As always with suicide attacks, the real fear is their unpredictability.

"I am so scared even to talk about it," says Mirwais, a university student. "If someone wants to kill himself, then he can kill anyone."

Foreign troops were targeted twice in Kabul this week

However, he says no one supports the bombers. "Suicide is against what the Koran says. It will not be forgiven even by god."

And, he says, "the [foreign] forces are here on the will and the invitation of the people and the Government of Afghanistan, we do not want them to go."

Yet some police and military commanders here admit that Kabul and its people are vulnerable if the attacks keep happening.

"I don't know how we will stop this," admits one Afghan security official.

"Everywhere else it has happened in the world, it has been a very difficult problem."