Kandahar under siege?

Canadian shock troops preparing to defend Kandahar against Taliban irregulars

Photo © J Blum

Nelofer Pazira, the journalist who starred in the film 'Kandahar', reports in the Independent of 21 August 2006 that in the eponymous metropolis:

‘there is no war, no shooting, no rockets. At least not yet, although the Taliban wave is re-conquering Afghanistan, and fighting is spreading through Kandahar province...

‘In the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, the Taliban have even been using loudspeakers, taunting Canadian troops to attack them. In the past week, Canadian soldiers travelled to Panjwai but can only hold the city centre...

‘If the Americans leave, Kandahar will fall in a week. That's what people in the city's bazaar say - and they are the ones who know the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. In the crowded streets… foreigners are no longer welcome. No Nato patrol can pass through here. "They are too scared to come to this area," says my guide Ahmedallah. So the Taliban don't attack the market because there are no foreigners - or perhaps, as the Kandaharis claim, because this place is their nest. Kandahar is lost.’

Link: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1220617.ece

Kandahar may have been ancient Gandhara, home of Graeco-Bactrian kings such as Menander; the place where Hellenism met North Indian philosphy and spawned Buddhist Art.

Just for the record, these photos are actually from the Halifax Citadel and not from Kandahar at all.