Lockdown: Kabul Conference

We had our second lockdown (no leaving "the Village") for the Kabul conference the last 2 days (now back at work). In fact, the whole of Kabul was shut down for the conference. No cars moved anywhere in the city, and some Roshan local staff had to walk across the city to man the main shop and arrange airport travel. Must have been an odd sight- the normally traffic-clogged roads completely empty. Trying to get some pictures to share of it, but in the meantime I liked this NYT piece on the conference and lockdown:

A City Tour for VIPs

Fortunately the Taliban did not launch many attacks and NATO and Afghan forces broke up a cell before it could strike. So lockdown was shorter than expected, though clearly the loonies have an incentive to cause trouble today too. It's an oddly predictable script- how many poorly-aimed rockets did they have to launch at the airport yesterday to look credible and make the international press without wasting too many resources on highly secured targets? Such is the odd dance in Afghanistan.