Stella Rimington - At Risk

He shifted in his blanket, and for almost a minute said nothing.

“You want to know? Really?”

“I want to know,” she said.

For several long moments she listened to his breathing.

“I was at Mardan,” he began. “At the madrassah. I was older than most of the other students-I was already twenty-three or twenty-four when I went there-and in religious terms I was very much less extreme. In fact I think that, at times, they despaired of my untroubled attitude. But I was able to make myself useful around the place, helping with the administration, supervising the building work they were having done, and ensuring that the two old Fiat taxis that they owned remained in running order. I had been there for almost two years when a letter came from Daranj in Afghanistan saying that my sister Laila was about to become betrothed. The man was a Tajik, like ourselves, and like us he had hoped to try and resettle in Pakistan. Now, though, he had given up hope of establishing himself there legally and had resolved to return to Dushanbe, and my parents had decided to accompany them. First, though, there was to be a celebration to mark the betrothal.

“As Laila’s elder brother I was naturally an important guest, but my father was concerned that if I crossed the frontier into Afghanistan I might not be able to re-enter Pakistan. I decided to take the chance, partly because I wanted to attend the betrothal and partly because I intended to get married myself. For some time I had had an understanding with Farzana, the daughter of a Pathan family who lived near to us in Daranj. Letters and gifts had been exchanged, and it was agreed that we were… we were destined for each other.

“Anyway, I made the crossing back across the border, and travelled to Daranj in the back of a truck headed for Kandahar. I arrived on the day of the betrothal, I met Khalid, whom my sister was to marry, and that night the celebrations began. There was the usual feasting, which lasted late into the night, and the usual high spirits. You have to remember that there was precious little opportunity for joy in these people’s lives, and so the chance to dance and sing and let off fatakars -homemade fireworks-was not to be missed.

“I was the first to see the American plane. These were not such an uncommon sight in the area-there were regular operations around Kandahar and on the border-and they were generally ignored. The people of Daranj hated the Taliban for the most part, but they had no love for the Americans either, and gave no assistance to the intelligence-gathering teams who blundered through the village at intervals.

“What was unusual was that the plane was so low. It was a huge thing-an AC-130 transporter gunship I discovered later. The betrothal ceremony had taken place at a small encampment outside the town, and I had wandered away from the celebrations to a nearby hill to gather my thoughts. I was happier than I had ever been in my life. I had proposed marriage to Farzana, she had accepted me, and her parents had given their permission. Below me the celebrations surrounding Laila and Khalid, her betrothed, were in full swing, with fireworks exploding, music playing and rifles being fired in the air.

“When the searchlights came on-one at each end of the plane-I thought, stupidly, that they were sending some sort of signal. Responding to the fireworks and the musical instruments with some sort of friendly display of their own. The war against the Taliban, after all, was over. There were Americans and British security forces stationed in Kabul, whole regiments of them, and there was a new government. So I stood there, staring, as the gunship opened fire on the encampment.

“Within seconds, of course, I understood what was happening. I ran towards the encampment waving my arms, yelling at the plane-as if anyone up there could hear me-that the people were just letting off fireworks. And all the while the plane was moving in these slow, methodical circles, drilling every inch of the place with cannon-fire. The dead and dying were everywhere, with the wounded writhing on the ground and rolling in the embers of fires, screaming. I ran through the firing as if it was rain, untouched, but I couldn’t find my parents or my sister or anyone I knew. And I couldn’t find Farzana. I screamed her name until I had no voice left, and then I felt myself lifted off my feet and thrown face-down on the rock. I had been hit.

“The next thing I knew was that Khalid, my future brother-in-law, had dragged me to my feet and was yelling at me to run. Somehow he got me out of the killing zone and back to the hill I had been standing on earlier. I had been hit in the side with shrapnel and was losing blood fast, but I managed to drag myself beneath a fold of the rock. After that, I passed out.

“When I came to, I was in Mir Wais hospital in Kandahar. Khalid had loaded eight of us into a truck and driven us there during the night. My sister Laila was alive, but had lost an arm, and my mother had suffered severe burns. She died a week later. My father, Farzana and a dozen others had been killed in the attack.”

Jean said nothing. She tried to synchronise her breathing with his, but he was too calm and she was too distressed. We are right in what we do, she told herself. And one day, long after we and thousands like us have given our lives for the struggle, we will prevail. We will prevail.

“That night the television carried a CNN report of a ‘firefight’ near Daranj. Elements loyal to Al Qaeda, the reporter said, had attempted to bring down a US transport aircraft with a surface-to-air missile. The attempt had failed, and the terrorists had been engaged and several of their number killed. Twenty-four hours later Al Jazeera ran a counter-story, in which Khalid was interviewed as an eyewitness. A US aircraft, they said, appeared to have launched an unprovoked attack on a betrothal party in an Afghan village, in the course of which fourteen Afghan civilians had been killed and eight critically wounded. Of the dead, six were women and three were children. None of those involved had any connection to any terrorist organisation.

“After refusing to comment on the incident for almost a week, a USAF spokesman conceded that it had taken place more or less as reported by Al Jazeera, and described the loss of life as ‘tragic.’ In mitigation, he said, the aircrew maintained that they had come under sustained small-arms fire, and the pilot stated that a surface-to-air missile had been fired at them. Pictures were published of the unit’s commander, Colonel Greeley, pointing to what he claimed was bullet damage to the fuselage of an AC-130 transporter gunship. In the course of the subsequent military inquiry, which totally exonerated the gunship’s crew, it was reported that two AK-47 assault rifles had been discovered in the area of the encampment, along with a number of expended 7.62 cartridge cases.”

“Did you give evidence at the inquiry?”

“What would have been the purpose of that, other than to draw attention to myself? Like everyone else, I knew what its conclusion would be. No, as soon as my wounds were healed I returned to Mardan.”

“That was two years ago?”

“That was almost exactly two years ago. Inside myself, now, I was a dead man. All that remained was the necessity of vengeance. The matter of izzat -honour. At the madrassah they were sympathetic-more than sympathetic. They sent me to one of the North West Frontier camps for a few months, and then sent me back across the border into Afghanistan. I took up work at a truck stop which operated as a cover for one of the jihadi organisations, and there, a few months later, I was introduced to a man named al Safa.”

“Dawood al Safa?”

“The same. Al Safa was interested by my story. For some time he had been considering revenge against those responsible for the Daranj massacre. Not a general action, but a specific, targeted reprisal. Just as they had come to our country to bomb, burn and kill, so we would do the same. The Americans and their allies would be left in no doubt of the length of our reach, or of the inexorability of our purpose. Al Safa had just visited a camp in Takht-i-Suleiman, he said, where Fate had delivered to him a pearl beyond price. A brave fighter, a young Englishwoman, who had dared to take the name of Asimat-bride of Salah-ud-din-and the sword of jihad. An Englishwoman, moreover, with highly specialised knowledge. Knowledge that would enable us to take a revenge of such exquisite appropriateness…”