The New York Times - 30.07.2019

A10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019

KABUL, Afghanistan — 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-Tal-
iban, he had been near the top of
the militants’ list for a long time.
But now there was an added rea-
son for targeting him: He was
about to start his campaign as the
running mate of President Ashraf
Ghani in his September re-elec-
tion bid.
About a week ago, Mr. Saleh
took a new look at the four-page
will. He added instructions for his
wife and five children 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
Sunday, the first day of the presi-
dential campaign, after he and
President Ghani had appeared at
a tightly guarded rally in Kabul,
Afghanistan’s capital.
Soon after Mr. Saleh reached his
political headquarters, he was
greeted by an enormous car
bomb. That was followed by a half-
dozen suicide bombers climbing
up to his fourth-floor office.
In the nearly seven hours of
havoc that ensued, about 30 peo-
ple were dead — 20 of them Mr.
Saleh’s guests or colleagues who
had spent years at his side.
The candidate narrowly es-
caped 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 back-
ground. I am deeply shaken — 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 sur-
vivor: of suicide attacks and am-
bushes, of years of political isola-
tion, but also of a deeply deprived
upbringing. As a child, he was or-
phaned and left destitute.
His ascension to the highest lev-

els of Afghan politics — he has al-

lied with Mr. Ghani, whom he once

staunchly criticized — comes in

one the most difficult and uncer-

tain periods of the Afghan war.

Bodies are piling up on all sides,

and an American search for a po-

litical settlement through negotia-

tions is proving difficult.

The bloodshed has furthered

concerns about the repeatedly de-

layed vote. The Taliban control or

threaten large swathes of the

countryside. In the urban centers,

Taliban militants, as well as mem-

bers of the Islamic State, are wag-

ing suicide attacks.

Amid this heightened insecuri-

ty, candidates and voters alike are

proceeding cautiously.

On Monday, the second day of

the campaign, none of the 18 can-

didates held a rally or public gath-

ering, local news media reported.

It is not just the violence. There

is also the problem of voter fa-

tigue, with political crises result-

ing from the last two disputed

votes adding to the toll of the war.

Some diplomats are concerned

that a repeat of previous fraudu-

lent elections could weaken Af-

ghanistan’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 negotiate with the Taliban.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, who

was Afghanistan’s national secu-

rity adviser when Mr. Saleh was

spy chief, said his old colleague

was a prime target because of his

“radical position” against the Tal-

iban and against the Pakistan in-

telligence agency, which is ac-

cused of supporting the Taliban.

“He has been a rarity in our se-

curity sector: a person with deep

research and study, but also with

experience both from his time in

the anti-Taliban resistance and

later as intelligence chief,” Mr.

Spanta said.

But many of his critics see his

inflexible resistance to the Taliban

as a hurdle at a time when the war

can end only through compro-

mise. And his denials of the extent

of Taliban control once went so far

that they stirred ridicule.

“Those who claim that terror

groups controls nearly half of Af-

ghanistan 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

eyebrows amid the rising insecu-

rity. “This falsehood and fake

news is mostly spread by stooges,

agents, and idiots.”

When the car bomb went off

outside his Kabul office early Sun-

day night, Mr. Saleh was meeting

a commander from northern

Baghlan Province who had re-

cently replaced his brother, who

had been killed with about two

dozen of his fighters.

The blast was so strong, blow-

ing out windows and furniture

alike, that the attackers were al-

ready 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 reg-

ularly practiced emergency drill

and headed for the roof and its

weapons stash. Afghan special

forces also arrived at the scene

and joined the battle.

Mr. Saleh’s surviving body-

guards secured 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

managed to escape to the next

building after the guards turned

their fire on the office window and

slid the ladder further away.

In the morning, the building

was a scene of carnage.

In the hallway of his office suite,

a small photograph of Mr. Saleh’s

granddaughter lay under broken

glass and dust.

Inside his office, his yellow

notepad was glued to the floor

with the blood of one of his aides

who had been shot dead there. On

the window of the room next door

were the shoes and hat of one of

the visitors who had tried — and

failed — to escape.

“We went to the office this

morning and found Haseeb’s body

under the armored gate,” said

Fahim Fetrat, the cousin of one of

Mr. Saleh’s bodyguards, named

Haseeb. “We thought since he was

too close to the car bomb there

might not be anything left, but we

found him.”

Mr. Saleh did not sleep all night,

helping prepare for the burial of

his colleagues, 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 re-

ceived months of training by the

Central Intelligence Agency in the

United States. Three of them were

buried in an overpopulated ceme-

tery on a mountainside in the

north of Kabul, their graves cov-

ered in fresh leaves.

Mr. Saleh said that when he ar-

rived 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 angry that he

slapped the candidate.

“I pulled him in and said, ‘Hit

me more,’ ” Mr. Saleh said. “He hit

me again.”

Mr. Saleh asked his bodyguards

to step back, he said, the man’s

pain understandable: 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. An-

other 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.”

An Afghan Candidate Prepared for Death, but Cheated It

By MUJIB MASHAL

Jawad Sukhanyar and Fahim
Abed contributed reporting.

Amrullah Saleh, running mate of President Ashraf Ghani, narrowly escaped a Taliban attack on his political headquarters.

JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Convinced that

‘I wasn’t going to

survive this time.’

NEW DELHI — India’s popula-
tion of endangered Bengal tigers
is on the rise, officials said Mon-
day.
According to a government esti-
mate, there are nearly 3,000 Ben-
gal tigers in the wild in India, a 33
percent increase since 2014. Wild-
life experts say better safety mon-
itoring and stricter wildlife polices
have helped the tiger population
grow to its largest in about two
decades.
“Once the people of India decide
to do something, there is no force
that can prevent them from get-
ting the desired results,” Prime
Minister Narendra Modi said at a
news conference on Monday an-
nouncing the figures.
But as the number of tigers has
increased, so have the human-ti-
ger conflicts in India, a country of
1.3 billion.
India has created nearly two
dozen tiger reserves in the last
decade, but many are surrounded
by villages. As development
projects shrink the space separat-
ing humans and tigers, the ani-
mals are spilling out of reserves in
search of prey — wild pigs, cattle
and sometimes people.
For over two years, a female ti-
ger that officials had named T-
stalked the hills of central India,
where she was blamed for the
deaths of at least 13 people. Last
fall, hundreds of officers and
sharpshooters riding elephants
tried to tranquilize her. When that
failed, T-1 was shot and killed.

Last week, a group of villagers

beat a tiger to death in the Pilibhit

Tiger Reserve, about 200 miles

east of New Delhi, after it attacked

several people. In a video of the in-

cident that was shared widely, the

tiger appeared to be trying to

block the blows with its paws.

Four people were arrested and

charged under a wildlife protec-

tion law.

Prerna Singh Bindra, a conser-

vationist and the author of “The

Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis,”

said the country needs “a sound

strategy” to avoid human-animal

conflicts. “Forests are being frag-

mented,” she said. “We are saying

yes to about 98 percent of develop-

ment and other projects in pro-

tected areas. If we keep cutting

habitats, this tiger utopia is going

to come crashing down.”

The tiger census released on

Monday, which covered nearly

150,000 square miles and tracked

“carnivore signs” using thou-

sands of camera traps, found that

India’s tiger population rose to

2,967 in 2018, about 700 more than

in 2014. The world has only about

4,000 tigers left in the wild.

The report found that tiger pop-

ulations had increased across In-

dia, with the highest number in

Madhya Pradesh, a hot, shrubby

state with more than 500 cats.

Apart from the camera traps,

thousands of wildlife officials cov-

ered more than 300,000 miles on

foot to collect dung samples and

take photographs from thick

green canopies.

The authors of the report, which

was prepared by the central gov-

ernment’s National Tiger Conser-

vation Authority, called it “the

world’s largest effort invested in

any wildlife survey.”

Mr. Modi took the opportunity

Monday to highlight the success,

saying in a tweet that the tiger

census would make “every Indi-

an, every nature lover happy.” The

report also coincided with the re-

lease of a promotional video for an

coming episode of Bear Grylls’s

popular television show “Man Vs.

Wild” featuring Mr. Modi.

Valmik Thapar, a prominent In-

dian naturalist and a wild tiger

specialist, said the data seemed

mostly accurate and suggested a

gradual return to numbers from

the 1980s, when India’s tiger popu-

lation hovered around 4,000. He

credited the rebound to closer co-

operation between state govern-

ments and wildlife experts.

(Other experts said the increase

might relate to improved counting

methods.)

But Mr. Thapar said there was

still a long way to go. Training for

conservationists in many states

remains “abysmal,” he said.

Mr. Thapar said India had yet to

realize its potential as a wildlife

tourism destination, which would

create jobs for some of the same

villagers who are currently hostile

toward the cats.

And some parts of eastern India

are still losing tigers, despite addi-

tional funds intended to save

them. In several premier re-

serves, Mr. Thapar said, there are

“no tigers at all.”

“We need to focus on doing

something about these problems,”

he said. “We must look after these

national treasures.”

A tiger cub in Maharashtra State, India. The country has about 3,000 Bengal tigers in the wild.

BRYAN DENTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

In India, a Rise in the Wild Tiger Population

By KAI SCHULTZ

Hari Kumar and Jeffrey Gettle-
man contributed reporting.

The airy three-story rental

house on the outskirts of Havana

would seem to have all the luxury

attributes a cosmopolitan tourist

might want: elegant appliances,

high-end artwork, a rooftop

plunge pool and ocean views.

Yet it is lacking one critical

amenity, an absence that has be-

come a deal breaker for some pro-

spective clients: Wi-Fi.

“It’s ridiculous to have to turn

away a potential client just be-

cause of a lack of internet,” la-

mented the house’s owner, Lean-

dis Díaz, 47. “Everyone who

comes to Cuba wants to use the in-

ternet — that’s normal.”

On Monday, though, Cuba, one

of the least wired nations in the

Western Hemisphere, took a step

that may soon solve Ms. Díaz’s

problem. It put into effect a new

set of regulations that seek to ex-

pand internet access on the island.

The measures permit the cre-

ation of private wired and Wi-Fi

internet networks in homes and

businesses and allow the importa-

tion of routers and other network-

ing equipment — though also

maintain the government’s iron-

fisted monopoly over commercial

internet access.

Cuba went online in the 1990s,

and has since lagged behind much

of the world in the rush toward

greater connectivity. For years,

access has remained expensive

and controlled, inhibited in part

by the government’s concerns

about the potentially subversive

effect of free-flowing information.

While the Cuban government

has acknowledged that the mod-

ernization of its economy required

greater connectivity, it has wor-

ried that broader access could fuel

dissent, said William LeoGrande,

a professor of government at

American University in Washing-

ton and a specialist in Latin Amer-

ican politics.

“There has always been a ten-

sion between the political risk of

expanding internet access and the

economic necessity for expanding

access,” Mr. LeoGrande said.

While the new regulations per-

mit citizens to connect to the inter-

net with their own routers and

other equipment and share their

signals with others, they do not al-

low those small-network opera-

tors to sell that service, thus main-

taining the position of Etecsa, the

state-run telecommunication

firm, as the nation’s only internet

provider.

The new rules also appear to

open the door to the legalization of

some existing private networks

that have been secretly operated

using smuggled or homemade

equipment. They will likely pro-

vide a boost for the tourism sector

by allowing businesses like

restaurants, cafes and privately

run bed-and-breakfasts to provide

Wi-Fi for their clients — an almost

obligatory service in much of the

world, but still extremely rare in

Cuba.

In 2013, Cuba hesitantly ex-

panded public internet access. It

also began a government-run

email service for cellphone users.

In 2015, the authorities set up 35

wireless hot spots around the is-

land and reduced access fees.

Even though the new hourly rates

were equivalent to about 10 per-

cent of the median monthly salary,

the hot spots were wildly popular.

Thick clusters of people standing

in public parks and plazas, staring

at smartphones and laptops, be-

came an increasingly familiar

sight.

There were 800 such Wi-Fi

spots throughout the country by

the end of last year, according to

Freedom House, the pro-democ-

racy watchdog.

Internet connectivity took a sig-

nificant leap late last year when

the government began offering

3G service, permitting full inter-

net access for mobile phones.

But legal home internet connec-

tions still remain rare — only

67,000 homes had it by last De-

cember, Freedom House reported

— and most legal access in offices

has been restricted to certain gov-

ernment employees and profes-

sions.

Illegal connections, however,

have proliferated using smuggled

or homemade antennas and pirat-

ed Wi-Fi signals.

Under the new regulations,

which were announced in May, op-

erators of illegal networks have

two months to bring their systems

into line with the law.

“These regulations contribute

to the informatization of society, to

the well-being of citizens, to the

sovereignty of the country, to the

avoidance of interference in the

radio spectrum and to the preven-

tion of the harmful effects of non-

ionizing radiation,” Cuba’s Min-

istry of Communication said in an-

nouncing the measures.

Ted Henken, a professor and

Cuba expert at Baruch College in

New York, predicted that the

short-term effect of the regula-

tions will be “minimal,” and that

long-term consequences will de-

pend on what he called “the devil

in the details.”

“Cuba has the tradition of ac-

companying new regulations that

seem to ‘open’ things up (the mar-

ket, travel, the internet, etc.) with

new punishments and controls,”

he wrote in an email on Monday.

If the law does, in fact, “regular-

ize” the many digital work-

arounds that have multiplied in

recent years, he said, “this will be

a significant step forward.”

Despite the invitation to con-

nect, at least one Cuban entrepre-

neur is not enthusiastic about the

possibility of broader access.

Nelson Rodríguez, 39, the

owner of El Café, a thriving

brunch spot in the tourist epicen-

ter of Old Havana, said he has no

plans to set up a Wi-Fi network in

his establishment.

In general, he explained, he be-

moans the internet-driven demise

of human interaction in public

spaces, and he suspects a Wi-Fi

router in his place would only en-

courage further isolation.

He also doesn’t want to see his

cafe turned into a de facto co-

working space, with customers

camping out in front of laptops all

day but purchasing nothing more

than a couple of lattes.

“I might even put up a Wi-Fi

blocker so that people will be

forced to interact,” he said.

Cuba Expands Private Internet Access

By KIRK SEMPLE

and HANNAH BERKELEY COHEN

Smartphone users in Havana. Cuba broadened internet access

on Monday, but a state-run firm remained the only provider.

DESMOND BOYLAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS