Like many Afghan refugees in Iran, bricklayer Mohammad Qadir Ibrahimi is scared any US-led strikes against his country will end the already slim hopes for peace and stability in his war-torn homeland.
Ibrahimi, working on one of the many new buildings going up in Iran's bustling capital, is among the more than a million Afghans who fled wars and poverty and found refuge in the neighboring Islamic republic.
Many of them are now worried over signs the United States will attack their country after the deadly September 11 kamikaze passenger jet attacks on New York and Washington which left more than 5,800 people dead.
Washington has identified Osama bin Laden, a Saudi dissident and Islamic militant who has lived in Afghanistan's as an "honored guest" of the ruling Taliban militia since 1996, as the "prime suspect" behind the attacks.
"If there is a war, it will be a prolonged one," says the 40-year-old Ibrahimi, who expressed concern for his wife and children in Herat.
"What have we done? The Taliban commit crimes, and again it us who have to pay! What an injustice," he says.
Many of the refugees gather together in the side-streets and listen to their radios awaiting new developments in Washington's "new war."
US President George W. Bush, who has declared war against terrorism and those who harbour terrorists, said he wants him bin Laden "dead or alive."
Eighteen-year-old Edris Ahmadi, a tailor, said he is also scared the United States will launch attacks against Afghanistan, but believes his country has little to lose after more than two decades of civil war.
"We want peace, but we don't think it will happen. Nobody knows what the United States wants," says Ahmadi, who also has no love lost for the Taliban who have imposed their ultra-strict form of Islamic Sharia law.
"Whether it is the Taliban, or others... we have lost everything and risk to lose even more," he says.
"We are sad in Iran, (but) we are not miserable. We can send money over," says Ahmadi, who stays in touch with his parents in Kabul by phone.
"But Iran is not our country," he adds. I've been here since my childhood and I must leave someday."
Conspiracy theories are also rife among the refugees over the attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and parts of the Pentagon outside Washington, with many suggestions bin Laden was not involved.
Ibrahimi, the bricklayer, is also certain that any strikes against Afghanistan would be part of a larger US plan to take over his country.
"We do not agree with what is happening. We are all against bin Laden, but the story of the Taliban or bin Laden is a pretext," he says.
"The Americans want to plant themselves in Asia, this is the truth."
Hassibollah Nasseri, 20, claims Pakistan, which is pressuring Afghanistan to hand over bin Laden, should share in the blame for the crisis by having been one of the three countries to recognize the Taliban regime.
"This is all a Pakistani plot. They are the ones who gave Afghanistan to the Taliban. Before, the horror used to be at their place. People are living in misery, women and youth are martyred," he says.
Thirty-year-old Abdulhabib Wahedi, a worker from Kabul, says such a "war" against terrorism would only serve US interests.
"I am not hopeful for my country," he says. "By attacking Afghanistan, the Americans want to forget their current problems. They want to a start a long war. This war serves US interests, not (those of) Afghanistan.
"It's all over. There is nothing left for us to hang on to," he says.
But Mohammad Zafar Yusefi, 29, another bricklayer from Kabul, sees a glimpse of hope for his country in case of retaliatory strikes: "We are happy. The Taliban will be crushed and we will resume a normal life."
"The Americans say they only want the terrorists. We hope that their operation will be to the benefit of Afghanistan," he says, adding that: "The Taliban have dishonoured and dirtied Islam” -- TEHRAN (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
