Troops Keen to Return to Work, Despite Deadly Risk

By Matthias Gebauer in Kunduz



Despite the shock, the mourning and the rage, the German soldiers stationed in Kunduz have no doubts about their mission in Afghanistan.

They know that its success hinges on their staying in touch with the local population. Despite Saturday's bomb blast that killed three of their comrades, they are willing to take the risk.

Peer Luther smokes a lot, one cigarette after another. As soon as he's stubbed one out, his powerful hands roll another one from dark tobacco. Having something to do, not allowing onself time to brood, that's important to the 50-year-old Colonel.

Two nights with little sleep have left dark rings around his eyes. He avoids direct eye contact. He spends a long time trying to express how he felt when he heard about his three boys. He murmurs something about "thunder in my head". Then a long pause, before words like "anger" and "rage" burst out of him.

Luther is a practical man; he's not someone who talks about feelings. But everything has changed since Saturday morning. The gaunt fair-haired man from Oldenburg in northern Germany commands the 400-strong German army unit in the city of Kunduz. The three civilian army employees killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up next to them in a bazaar in Kunduz were part of his unit.

It was the deadliest attack on German troops in Afghanistan since 2003 when four were killed in a suicide car bombing in Kabul.

Behind the safe walls of the soldiers' camp in Kunduz, there's a sense of deep shock. All flags are at half mast, including the ones attached to aerials on the jeeps and armored vehicles.

The camp has a deserted feel to it, there's not much activity in its various yards which usually serve as meeting places for the troops. Everyone is keeping busy with chores. Trying to avoid thinking too much about what the attack means.

On Sunday evening they gathered to mourn in "Potsdamer Platz" square, a little area next to the cold store where the dead bodies were being kept. The priest tried to speak in metaphors, talking about the sun, and saying the three will never be forgotten. There was no order to attend mass, but virtually everyone came. "No one wanted to be alone," said one soldier.

Colonel Luther sits in his office on Monday morning. The windows are tinted. The humming of the air conditioning fills his long silences. He doesn't want to give details about the attack, and says the investigation is still ongoing. But he's very clear on one point. "We will do our utmost to resume our work for the people here as soon as possible," says the experienced soldier, a veteran of missions in Kosovo and Somalia.



Small success in a land of chaos

To be outside, on the street, in the bazaar with the local people, that has been the guideline and the routine so far. The soldiers built bridges, repaired roads, erected schools. The aim is to get people to support the new Afghanistan, to create stability.

Amid all the talk about German troops being reluctant to fight, this mission has been a small success in a land of chaos. The uniformed reconstruction workers have always been vulnerable. And the north isn't nearly as safe as many a Berlin-based politician likes to claim.

Luther doesn't like to use the word routine, even if last Saturday was just that. Like on most days the three soldiers, civilians really, drove the few kilometers into Kunduz accompanied by a team of soldiers to protect them.
Like always they parked the vehicle by the cleaning company "Ecolog". They proceeded on foot, heavily laden with protective vests and helmets. They wanted to buy fridges and have a chat with the locals. Then, at eight minutes past ten in the morning, the suicide bomber detonated himself in the rassta chai froshic, the street of tea traders. The three soldiers were dead immediately.

When pictures of the murder scene flickered across their screens a few hours later -- images of ripped limbs of the dead, or the wounded staring in shock -- Luther and his troops were more than furious. They had only just heard the first details in camp before friends and family of the victims learned about the attack on TV back in Germany. It was clearly aimed at Germans. "The shock was hard enough, but the pictures and the phone calls from home finished some of us off," said one soldier.

Back on Patrol a Day Later

While Peer Luther raged about the media, soldiers in the parking lot were already putting on bullet-proof vests. On Sunday the colonel sent his men back out on patrols. On Monday there were five convoys -- all armored vehicles. Luther at least wanted to show a presence, mainly to keep the Afghans from thinking that the Germans were just cowering in their camp after the attack. No one complained, he said. The boys are too well-trained.

"Showing presence" is one thing; but on Monday everything was different. Near the central roundabout on the town's main street, around noon, an olive-green German "Dingo" stood watch. Compared to the women in windblown burkas, endless white Toyota Corollas and brightly painted rickshaws passing on the road, the armored vehicle looks like a dangerous robot. Only now and then does the cannon turn on the roof and betray a sign of human life behind the steel monster's half-mirrored windshield. The men aren't allowed to climb out.

The Germans, so far, have managed to avoid this kind of image whenever possible. They prefer to patrol on foot, not in armored vehicles. They've tried to be truly present. They want to be "close to the people," as the previous commanders in Kunduz liked to put it.

Officers around Colonel Luther hope this more personal style of patrol will be possible again soon. Whether and when is a matter for politicians. Berlin, of course, is a long way off, but the soldiers in Kunduz have noticed just how nervous the bombing has made German politicians. They've heard the first loud calls for a pullout; (more...) they've heard the critics wondering why German soldiers were in Afghanistan at all.

But the soldiers in Kunduz read these questions a bit differently. They wonder how, exactly, they're supposed to rebuild a country under the tight new rules. They know that from an armored car it's all but impossible to find meaningful new projects or help local entrepreneurs put up a building -- or, in fact, to meet any of ISAF's objectives. Even if no one here wants to put it so bluntly, the danger was always as big a part of the German mission to Afghanistan as the noble idea of giving aid: No risk, no help.

German soldiers knew before Saturday that their mission here involved risk. Many of them think it's incredible that things had gone so well for so long. For months there had been warnings about suicide bombers infiltrating northern Afghanistan. When spring started, there were more and more attacks -- what soldiers like to call "security-relevant events," in dry Bundeswehr jargon. But it was always Afghan police or the local militias who had dead and wounded to report.

"Germany Must Stay -- We Need You!"

There's a general anxiety in Kunduz that the Germans may throw in the towel. The local police chief, Abdul Hadi Aymac, takes time out to praise the Bundeswehr's accomplishments. "Without the Germans, we'd be lost," he says. The governor repeats the same refrain, incessantly. With the city elders he's organized a demonstration; he wants to flood the streets with thousands of people on Thursday for a show of solidarity with the Germans. They've even come up with a motto: "Germany must stay -- we need you!" -- which might lend some comfort to the shell-shocked soldiers.

Early on Tuesday morning, in secret, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier flew in to talk with a handful of soldiers and their commander. He wanted to bolster spirits, express gratitude for the dangerous mission and drum up support back home for the next 12-month extension of the German mission, which faces a parliamentary vote in the fall. Until then, he said, Colonel Luther and his troops will have to find their way back to a semblance of normality.

"Terror is a threat everywhere," Steinmeier said after his visit. "There's no such thing as absolute safety from terrorist attacks." The minister's jet was hardly off the ground when three armored cars drove back out into danger, heading for Kunduz.

 

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