“The people in Afghanistan will welcome anyone who could bring us peace, including the Americans,” said a 38-year-old shopkeeper from the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.
He described scenes of chaos in the countryside, with people fleeing in all directions to escape the bombing. “The cities are almost empty,” he said. “Thousands of people are coming this way, in trucks, in cars. Everyone is desperate only to find food, shelter and safety.”
The new refugee left home Saturday with 52 members of his extended family. Sitting at the home of a relative in Peshawar on Sunday, the shopkeeper said he did not want to be identified by name for fear of retribution from the Taliban, which has representatives and spies in Afghan refugee camps and Afghan communities in Pakistan.
With only male relatives gathered around, he talked at length about the panic across Afghanistan in the past week of bombing, but also about the hope that Afghanistan’s long ordeal soon may be over.
“The people don’t support the Taliban,” he said. “They only say so because they are afraid. For now, the Taliban is in control, but if they are removed, the people will be happy and they will support whoever can bring them peace.”
Although his account represented the opinion of just one family group, it offered a glimpse into the mood within Afghanistan as a second week of bombardment began, a view that challenges the Taliban assertion of a nation united in anti-American rage and ready to wage holy war against U.S. forces.
“The last two decades we are fighting and fighting and fighting, first the Russians, then the warlords, then the Taliban, and if it turns out that the Taliban are swept away by the Americans, and if someone else comes who can keep the peace, the people would be happy,” he said.
“Because of fear of the Taliban, people can’t say openly what they feel,” he added. ” But I am sure this is a unanimous opinion.”
A second, unrelated family of 12 from Kabul, which also arrived Sunday in Pakistan, gave a similar account of the situation in Afghanistan’s capital–and of a people so weary of war and tired of Taliban controls that they would regard the Americans as liberators, despite the bombardment.
Meena is a mother of five who, like many Afghans, uses one name. She is not educated and doesn’t know her age. She ran away as blasts from bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes shook her home in a Kabul neighborhood Saturday. U.S. officials confirmed Saturday that they had accidentally hit a civilian neighborhood. In Meena’s haste to flee, she forgot to bring shoes for two of her children. As her family piled into a mini-bus to head for the border, she saw that the homes of several of her neighbors had been destroyed. She fears some may have been injured or killed.
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“I hate [Americans] of course,” she said. “But my feeling is, let’s give peace a chance. Bring the UN, bring anyone, and yes, even bring America. If the Americans bring peace, we will support them.”
Both families said they think the Taliban’s control is breaking down. Since the bombing began, the shopkeeper said, Taliban representatives who normally patrol their neighborhood to rigidly enforce attendance at Muslim prayers, to check on the length of men’s beards and ensure that women are covered from head to toe, are nowhere to be seen.
“They have not come around at all, not to check what we are doing or even if we are OK,” he said. “They are just looking out to save their skins. We came here and they did not even stop us or check to see who we are or where we are going.”
Pakistan has refused to open its border with Afghanistan to allow refugees to cross, fearing an onslaught.
But those with relatives in Pakistan have been slipping across, using mountain routes and mule paths that evade formal controls. Others are escaping to the countryside, the shopkeeper said.
“I don’t think the Taliban could fight the Americans for a long time,” he said.
“I don’t see that they have the resources, and they don’t have support.”
Afghanistan has a history of welcoming outsiders only to turn against them later.
It welcomed U.S. support against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and initially welcomed the victory of the Taliban in 1996 over the warlords who had reduced Afghanistan to anarchy.
More than a decade of rule by Islamic fundamentalists has brought deeply ingrained anti-Americanism to the Afghan psyche.
But Afrasiab Khattab, a Peshawar-based human-rights campaigner, said he believes most Afghans would greet the defeat of the Taliban by American forces with relief, if not enthusiasm.
“The silent majority of Afghans have literally been held hostage by these terrorists. Who else will rid them of the Taliban?” he said. “I don’t believe in the long term deploying foreign forces would work, because Afghanistan is a xenophobic society. But they really want peace and they really don’t care who brings it.”