KABUL - Afghanistan’s drivers are some of the most fearless in the world. But a string of suicide attacks on foreign military convoys has changed all that.Afraid of being caught up in a Taleban attack, they now slow down or veer off the road to avoid the convoys. ‘I either stop my car or basically change my route when I see the troops because of the fear of suicide attackers,’ says Mohammad Afzal, a 45-year-old taxi driver in Kabul, which has seen six suicide bombings in as many weeks in the relatively peaceful capital. ‘One gets scared and has to avoid the convoys,’ he says, waiting for passengers on an autumn day.
Fellow taxi driver Khan Mohammad says if he can’t avoid the convoy, he prays to God to forgive him and send him to paradise if he dies: ‘That is all I can do. Everybody is scared, I think.’
Another fear for many is being fired on by nervous soldiers if they get too close. The United Nations and foreign aid groups have warned their drivers to avoid military convoys. In Iraq, convoy vehicles carry signs warning drivers to keep their distance, but that is rare and of little use in largely illiterate Afghanistan.
Still not as common in Afghanistan as in Iraq, the increasing suicide attacks this year have killed about 200 people, mostly civilians, according to NTO, compared with 50-60 last year.