4 | WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
world
Even before he received specific intelli-
gence about an attempt planned on his
life, Amrullah Saleh had a feeling they
were coming for him soon. So he wrote
his will.
As a former Afghan intelligence chief
who is staunchly anti-Taliban, he had
been near the top of the militants’ list for
a long time. But now there was an added
reason for targeting him: He was about
to launch his campaign as the running-
mate of President Ashraf Ghani in his
September re-election bid.
About a week ago, Mr. Saleh took a
new look at the four-page will. He added
instructions for his wife and five chil-
dren on how to handle news of his death
and how to gain access to his savings.
Mr. Saleh said he was convinced that
“I wasn’t going to survive this time.”
The attack he dreaded came on Sun-
day, the first day of the presidential cam-
paign, after he and President Ghani had
appeared at a tightly guarded rally in
Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
Soon after Mr. Saleh reached his polit-
ical headquarters, he was greeted by an
enormous car bomb. That was followed
by a half-dozen suicide bombers’ climb-
ing up to his fourth-floor office.
In the nearly seven hours of havoc
that ensued, about 30 people were dead
— 20 of them Mr. Saleh’s guests or col-
leagues who had spent years at his side.
The candidate narrowly escaped after
a 50-minute battle with the insurgents,
engaging them from the building’s
rooftop where weapons were kept.
“They had come to kill me at any
price, and they did everything right,”
Mr. Saleh said. “That I am alive is God’s
help, God’s will, and maybe a little help
from my background. I am deeply shak-
en — my emotions, my humanity. But
my determination to fight is strength-
ened. I have 20 more reasons to fight.”
Mr. Saleh, 46, is a longtime survivor:
of suicide attacks and ambushes, of
years of political isolation, but also of a
deeply deprived upbringing. As a child,
he was orphaned and left destitute.
His ascension to the highest levels of
Afghan politics — he has allied with Mr.
Ghani, whom he once staunchly criti-
cized — comes in one of the most diffi-
cult and uncertain periods of the Afghan
war. Bodies are piling up on all sides,
and an American search for a political
settlement through negotiations is prov-
ing difficult.
The bloodshed has only furthered
concerns about the repeatedly delayed
vote. The Taliban control or threaten
large swathes of the countryside. In the
urban centers, Taliban militants, as well
as members of the Islamic State, are
waging suicide attacks.
Amid this heightened insecurity, can-
didates and voters alike are proceeding
cautiously.
On Monday, the second day of the
campaign, none of the 18 candidates
held a rally or public gathering, local
media reported.
It is not just the violence. There is also
the problem of voter fatigue, with politi-
cal crises resulting from the last two dis-
puted votes adding to the toll of the war.Some diplomats are concerned that a
repeat of previous fraudulent elections
could only weaken Afghanistan’s hand
in negotiations with the Taliban. Mr.
Ghani’s team, including Mr. Saleh, argue
that only a government with a strong
mandate through elections can negoti-
ate with the Taliban.
Rangin Dadfar Spanta, who was Af-
ghanistan’s national security adviser
when Mr. Saleh served as spy chief, said
his former colleague was a prime target
because of his “radical position” againstthe Taliban and against the Pakistan in-
telligence agency, which is accused of
supporting the Taliban.
“He has been a rarity in our security
sector: a person with deep research and
study, but also with experience both
from his time in the anti-Taliban resist-
ance and later as intelligence chief,” Mr.
Spanta said.
But many of his critics see his inflexi-
ble resistance to the Taliban as a hurdle
at a time when the war can end only
through compromise. And his denials ofthe extent of Taliban control once went
so far that they stirred ridicule.
“Those who claim that terror groups
controls nearly half of Afghanistan are
invited to visit my office in Kabul & join
us for a tour of the country by road, by
plane, by bike, on horse and by foot,” Mr.
Saleh tweeted in February, raising eye-
brows amid the rising insecurity. “This
falsehood and fake news is mostly
spread by stooges, agents, and idiots.”
When the car bomb went off outside
his Kabul office early Sunday evening,
Mr. Saleh was meeting a commander
from northern Baghlan Province who
had recently replaced his brother, who
had been killed along with about two
dozen of his fighters.
The blast was so strong, blowing out
windows and furniture alike, that the at-
tackers were already making their way
up the stairs toward his fourth-floor of-
fice as Mr. Saleh tried to make sense of
what had happened.
He and his aides followed a regularly
practiced emergency drill and headed
for the roof and its weapons stash. Af-
ghan special forces also arrived at the
scene and joined the battle.
Mr. Saleh’s surviving bodyguards se-
cured the adjacent building and put a
ladder in place so he could climb across
to it.
But the militants had already made it
to his office and began shooting at the
ladder from his small window. Mr. Saleh
and the half-dozen colleagues with him
escaped after the guards turned their
fire on the office window and slid the lad-
der further away.Mr. Saleh did not sleep all night, help-
ing prepare for the burial of his col-
leagues, his friends said.
The bodies went to cemeteries across
Kabul, as well as provinces in the north
and east.
Some of Mr. Saleh’s closest guards
have received months of training by the
Central Intelligence Agency in the
United States.
Three of them were buried in an over-
populated cemetery on a mountainside
in the north of Kabul, their graves cov-
ered in fresh leaves.
Mr. Saleh said that when he arrived at
a government hospital at 2 a.m. to visit
the wounded and the dead, one of the
relatives of a dead colleague was so an-
gry that he slapped the candidate.
“I pulled him in and said, ‘Hit me
more,’” Mr. Saleh said. “He hit me
again.”
Mr. Saleh told his bodyguards to step
back, he said, the man’s pain under-
standable: His loved one was gone, Mr.
Saleh still alive.
The candidate said he then asked the
young man whether his death would
have eased his pain, and the man said
yes. “I pulled my handgun, loaded it, and
gave it to him,” Mr. Saleh said.
The young man hesitated, he said,
and returned the gun. Another relative
stepped forward, grabbed Mr. Saleh by
the collar and hit him.
“I told my guards they have no right
to touch anyone who hits me here,” Mr.
Saleh said. “They have every right to do
so. We need to answer them for what is
going on in this country.”He wrote a will, then survived a suicide attack
Amrullah Saleh at home in Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Monday, a day after he narrowly escaped an attack at his office on the first day of the presidential campaign.PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESKABUL, AFGHANISTANMilitants reached office
of Afghan politician and
killed 20 of his colleaguesBY MUJIB MASHALThe morning after the attack, the building was a scene of carnage, with blood every-
where. Of his survival, Mr. Saleh said: “That I am alive is God’s help, God’s will.”President Trump has made migration
the defining issue in the relationship be-
tween his administration and the gov-
ernments of Central America and Mex-
ico.
He has pressed the region’s leaders to
reduce the number of migrants heading
north and crossing the southwest bor-
der of the United States, even going so
far as to freeze hundreds of millions of
dollars in development aid to Central
America.
One of his goals has been to get those
countries to absorb more asylum seek-
ers. On Friday, Mr. Trump made a sur-
prise announcement that the United
States had signed an agreement with
Guatemala that would require asylum
seekers who travel through that country
to first seek refuge there.
The deal represents a major shift from
longstanding American policy and
would be extraordinarily rare by inter-
national standards. Many details have
not been disclosed, and critics in both
the United States and Guatemala have
threatened to go to court to try to derail
it. But if successfully put in place, the
agreement could have profound effects
on migrant flows in the hemisphere.HOW WOULD IT WORK?
Every month, tens of thousands of mi-
grants — from Latin America and
around the world — have been making
their way north through Central Amer-
ica in the hopes of crossing into the
United States. An increasing number
have sought sanctuary in the United
States, overwhelming the American
asylum system and infuriating Mr.
Trump, who has tried to limit their abil-
ity to win American protection.The American government’s latest
tactic is the agreement with Guatemala.
Known as a “safe third country agree-
ment,” the deal would make asylum
seekers ineligible for protection in the
United States if they had traveled
through Guatemala and did not first ap-
ply for asylum there. Under the agree-
ment, the American authorities would
be allowed to return those migrants to
Guatemala, relieving pressure on the
American immigration system.
The arrangement would largely pre-
vent people from Honduras and El Sal-
vador, two of the main sources of mi-
grants at the moment, from seeking
American asylum. It would also block
large numbers of asylum seekers from
elsewhere in Latin America and around
the world who travel by land to the
United States via Guatemala. Guatema-
lan and Mexican asylum seekers, how-
ever, would not be affected.HAS IT BEEN DONE BEFORE?
Safe third country agreements are rare.
The United States signed such a deal
with Canada in 2002. The European Un-
ion has one with Turkey that allows asy-
lum seekers who arrive at the Greek
border to be returned to Turkey.
But it appears that no such agreement
has been signed with a nation that is as
ill equipped as Guatemala to deal with
asylum seekers and keep them safe, ex-
perts say. Though homicide rates there
have fallen sharply in the last decade,
the country remains among the deadli-
est in the world. Crime, impunity and
corruption are rife, and critics argue
that it is unable to meet the safety re-
quirements demanded by the deal.
The State Department has issued
alerts about the rampant violence and
frail law-enforcement system in the
country.
“Violent crime, such as armed rob-
bery and murder, is common,” the StateDepartment warns in its current travel
advisory for Guatemala. “Gang activity,
such as extortion, violent street crime,
and narcotics trafficking, is widespread.
Local police may lack the resources to
respond effectively to serious criminal
incidents.”IS EVERYONE ON BOARD?
Trump administration officials have
said that the agreement will take effect
in the next several weeks. But there are
significant obstacles in its way.
Critics in both the United States and
Guatemala will almost certainly file le-
gal challenges that could delay, alter or
eviscerate the deal.
Opposition is widespread in Guate-
mala, where the Constitutional Court
ruled recently that the Guatemalan gov-
ernment needed congressional approv-
al to make a safe third country deal with
the United States. That ruling, which
came amid negotiations between the
Trump administration and the adminis-
tration of the Guatemalan president,
Jimmy Morales, prompted Mr. Trump to
threaten the Central American nation
with punitive tariffs, a travel ban and
taxes on the remittances sent home by
Guatemalan migrants in the United
States.
On Friday, Mr. Morales seemed to be
trying to skirt the court ruling by avoid-
ing the use of the term “safe third coun-
try” in his statement on the deal. But the
Trump administration did use the term,
giving impetus to potential legal chal-
lenges in Guatemala.
There are also several steps the
United States government must take be-
fore the agreement can be put into ef-
fect.
The Justice Department and the De-
partment of Homeland Security would
have to certify that Guatemala has a
“full and fair” asylum system, and is
able to protect asylum seekers fromother countries if the United States
sends them there.WOULD IT WORK?
To answer this question, let’s look at
some numbers. Last year, about 62,
people from El Salvador and Honduras
petitioned for asylum in the United
States, according to the United Nations.
Most of them entered the country
through the southwest border.
By comparison, a total of 257 people
sought asylum in Guatemala.
The Migration Policy Institute in
Washington called the Guatemalan asy-
lum system “embryonic.”
Should the deal stand, the possible
surge in applications would force Guate-
mala to set up a robust asylum process-
ing system in a very short period of
time.
Beyond the particulars of Guatema-la’s case, safe third country agreements
have had mixed success and “have gen-
erally proven difficult to enforce for a
mix of practical and legal reasons,” the
Migration Policy Institute said in a com-
mentary. Such challenges have included
proving that the asylum seeker tran-
sited the safe country in the first place.
In the three years following the 2016
signing of the agreement between the
European Union and Turkey, about
2,400 people were returned from Greece
to Turkey out of about 145,600 arrivals in
Greece, the institute said.
But an even bigger question about the
new United States-Guatemala agree-
ment is whether the Guatemalan au-
thorities could honor the promise of
keeping asylum seekers safe.What an asylum deal may ask of Guatemala
Migrants along the Mexican side of the border wall with the United States. The Trump
administration has said that an asylum agreement with Guatemala will take effect soon.ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESMEXICO CITYBY KIRK SEMPLEMichael Shear contributed reporting
from Washington.Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish
climate activist, will cross the Atlantic
Ocean in mid-August on an open-cockpit
racing yacht to attend a United Nations
summit meeting on global warming.
“Good news! I’ll be joining the U.N.
Climate Action Summit in New York,”
Ms. Thunberg said Monday on Twitter.
“I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft rac-
ing boat Malizia II.”
The trip to New York is expected to
take two weeks. Ms. Thunberg, who is
taking the year off from school to cam-
paign against climate change, also plans
to attend the annual United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate
Change talks, to be held in December in
Santiago, Chile.
She has called the two conferences
“pretty much where our future will be
decided,” because nations will be
pushed to further reduce emissions of
the planet-warming gasses that come
from burning fossil fuels. “We still have
a window of time when things are in our
own hands,’’ Ms. Thunberg said in a
statement Monday. “But that window is
closing fast. That is why I have decided
to make this trip now.”
Ms. Thunberg does not fly because of
the greenhouse gas emissions associ-
ated with air travel. She had been seek-
ing an alternate means of traveling to
New York for the meeting.
The boat she plans to take, Malizia II,
is outfitted with solar panels and under-
water turbines to generate electricity.
That should make the entire trip possi-
ble without burning any fossil fuels.
Boris Herrmann, who will be the
boat’s skipper, said the voyage would
not be the luxury cruise that a high-tech
yacht might conjure in the popular
imagination. The Malizia II is built for
speed, not comfort. It has no kitchen, re-
frigeration system, air-conditioning or
showers.
“There’s really zero comfort on this
boat,” Mr. Herrmann said. He said he
had warned Ms. Thunberg that for two
weeks, she will mostly eat freeze-dried
and vacuum-packed meals, and that the
crossing is likely to be choppy or worse.“I asked her if she was scared and she
explained in a very analytical way that
she thinks this voyage is safe, the boat
has a lot of safety systems and is capable
of sailing around the world in a race and
therefore it’s a strong boat,” Mr. Herr-
mann said. “She seems not to be worried
about her comfort that much.”
Ms. Thunberg will be accompanied on
the trip by a filmmaker; her father,
Svante; and Pierre Casiraghi, the head
of the Malizia II racing team who is also
the grandson of Prince Rainier III of
Monaco and the actress Grace Kelly.
Mr. Casiraghi said there were only a
handful of zero-emissions vessels like
Malizia II in existence. He said the team
developed it after becoming frustrated
at the incongruity of working so hard to
keep the oceans clean while simulta-
neously burning fossil fuels.
Safety rules require that racing boats
like the Malizia II have motors and gen-
erators aboard in case of trouble, like a
broken rudder near the shore, for exam-
ple, but the team keeps them sealed.
“We’re not going to use any fuel unless
we have an emergency,” Mr. Casiraghi
said.
Mr. Herrmann said he had connected
with Ms. Thunberg after his girlfriend, a
schoolteacher in Hamburg, Germany,
told him about the impression she had
made during an appearance there in
March. The girlfriend suggested that if
Ms. Thunberg ever needed to make a
trip that was not possible by train, Mr.
Herrmann should offer his help.
A few weeks later Ms. Thunberg
spoke publicly about the challenges of
traveling to the United States and Chile
without flying, and Mr. Herrmann and
Mr. Casiraghi offered her a ride.
Ms. Thunberg said in a statement she
expected to attend a number of events
along the way to the climate confer-
ences, making stops in Canada, Mexico
and South America, and “meeting with
people most impacted by the climate
and ecological emergency.”
The Malizia II will drop Ms. Thunberg
off in New York and go on its way. Mr.
Casiraghi said arrangements for her re-
turn to Sweden had not yet been made.
“She has a long way to go,” he said.
“Her adventure is much bigger than just
this crossing.”Footprints
to climate
session to be
carbon free
Teenage activist plans
to sail across Atlantic
to New York meetingBY LISA FRIEDMANGreta Thunberg, a climate activist, is
taking a racing yacht to reach New York.PHILIPPE WOJAZER/REUTERSРЕ
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