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News Analysis
Fort with a chequered history
By Atul Aneja
BALA HISAR FORT (KABUL), DEC. 10. The Bala Hisar Fort overlooks the southern gates of Kabul. Perched on the edge of the Sher Darwaz mountain, the battle-scarred citadel has a chequered history. It was once used as residence by both Babur and Timur. But by the late 19th century, it became a part of the Great Game, the struggle between the British and the Russians for securing the approaches to India.
The ``forward school'' in Britain pushed the idea that after due formalities, their garrison should be sent into Kabul to checkmate a possible Russian advance towards India. Sir Louis Cavagnari was appointed the British envoy to the court of Amir Yaqub Khan. In July 1879, he occupied the ``residency'' in the sprawling Bala Hisar Fort compound. But two months later, the envoy was killed in an attack by disgruntled Afghans. The next British resident arrived in Kabul only in 1922.
Bala Hisar, which was converted into a military academy in 1939, even today has the look of a garrison township. Most of the buildings in the fort have been blown up during the endless rounds of fighting. The centre of the compound resembles a junkyard of Russian-built equipment. Remains of artillery guns, multi-barrel launchers, armoured personnel carriers and anti- aircraft guns are all dumped in a mangled heap. Northern Alliance forces now patrol the compound.
British fears about Russian designs in Afghanistan were in part triggered by the presence of Capt. Ivan Vitkevich. A colourful personality, the Russian agent came to Kabul apparently for a commercial purpose in December 1837. He bore a letter from Count Simonich, the Russian Ambassador in Teheran. He also had with him an unsigned letter from the Tsar, the authenticity of which was doubtful. Capt. Vitkevich established contacts with Dost Mohammad, the Afghan ruler who was looking for support to establish a hold over Peshawar. The agent's activities deepened tensions between the British and the Russians, adding yet another episode to the enthralling Great Game.
The road through the Bala Hisar Fort snakes its way towards Pul-e-Kishti, within a km of the Kabul river, the fulcrum around which the entire city revolves. Pul-e-Kishti has been reduced to rubble. Only the Idgah, supposedly the biggest mosque in Afghanistan, has survived the destruction. The near flattening of the area, except for the yellow walls that still remain, is attributed to the rocket attacks of Mr. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a one-time foe and later an uneasy ally of the late Alliance Commander, Ahmad Shah Masood. These attacks took place during the presence of the mujahideen Government that took over after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. The Pul-e-Kishti is also the area along which the Taliban strode into power in Kabul in September 1996, after breaking through the defence lines set by Mr. Hekmatyar who had, by then, made up with Masood. Masood's defences had been arraigned along the Kabul river, a short distance away.
While the Great Game ended with neither the Russians nor the British gaining control of Afghanistan, the Soviets broke the arrangement by stepping into the country nearly eight decades later. West of the Kabul river remnants of the Soviet presence still remain. Rows of Soviet-built housing complexes stand out. Their similarity with Soviet construction in Central Asia as well as Moscow is striking. But so is their dissimilarity with Kabul's Islamic architecture. Not far from the complex is the Kabul airport where personnel belonging to the Russian emergency forces moved in late last month.
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