The locals are restless in Kandahar

Kandahar City Street Scene

For all the time I have been here on this recent assignment, I was located in downtown Kandahar City.  Now most people would say that would be the most dangerous place to be, outside the wire and all.

Yeah, being in a smaller compound in the city posed threats like VBIED ( Vehicle Borne IED) and other unhappy outcomes. The Taliban blew up a police station that was three blocks down the street in early July. We were able to hear occasional AK-47 fire in the distance when you would step out on the balcony in the evening. (Kinda like living in parts of the Chicago and/or Detroit, I guess)

Well recently, we have had to move out of downtown and relocate to a camp near Kandahar Airfield. The local compound downtown was up for lease renewal and the landlords wanted to triple the rent.....so much for that.

The new place is a nice facility that resembles a college campus - green grass, nice private rooms that are like dorms and good food.

So here we are at the nice new place near KAF when we get something we didn't get at the place downtown - The early AM Rocket attack. Really ??

They hit at KAF twice between 06:00 - 07:00 on Sunday AM. I heard the impacts so they were fairly close but far enough away that they didn't rearrange any of the local structures....

So we traded being downtown where we lived close by the locals to being back by KAF and getting regular rocket attacks..... Guess that is the trade offs here in the sandbox. We'll deal with it as the program we are working is in place to help the locals even if a few of them are acting like idiots.

Most of the locals are just trying to figure out a way to live peacefully but the few that aren't are a real pain in the arse.