'Wandering Around This Great And Hospitable City, Allegedly "Baghdad At Its Worst."'

Terry Glavin in downtown Kabul, embedded with Afghans:

Took the day off. Spent my time strolling around Murad Khane, Kabul's ancient centre, and its adjacent bazaars and neighbourhoods. Packed with people doing their afternoon shopping and errands; strangely, everybody's stock portfolios appear to have have held up here (joke). Lamb and naan for lunch. Met some Sikh spice merchants, Shujah bought a kite, that kind of thing. You can tell I'm some sort of kaffir, so people go out of their way to smile and say hello.

The trick is to vary your routines - I have no routines, check - and don't draw attention to yourself in strange and conspicuous ways - check. Do these thinks, be sensible, and Kabulis will take care of the rest:

As for Baghdad, here's a paragraph from Con Coughlin's piece mentioned towards the end of this post that I did not excerpt, with Mr Glavin in mind:

Three years ago, I visited Kabul shortly before British forces were deployed. It was possible to walk around the city centre, buy carpets in bazaars and eat out at local restaurants. Today, you take your life in your hands the moment you leave the fortified enclaves where most Western workers are based (central Kabul is looking more like Baghdad's green zone with every passing day) so deadly is the threat posed by the Taliban and their supporters.

By the way, British forces first deployed to Kabul in early 2002 at the head of ISAF I, then a non-NATO mission established by UN Security Council Resolution 1386 of December 20, 2001 with a mandate limited at the time to Kabul and environs. Under the resolution the Council

...
1. Authorizes, as envisaged in Annex 1 to the Bonn Agreement, the establishment for 6 months of an International Security Assistance Force to assist the Afghan Interim Authority in the maintenance of security in Kabul and its surrounding areas, so that the Afghan Interim Authority as well as the personnel of the United Nations can operate in a secure environment...