Afghanistan holding a ‘stealth’ rock music festival in Kabul

via Matador Network by Kristin Conard on 9/30/11

Screen shot from Kabul Dreams, one of the featured bands, second music video for Sadae Man.

Afghanistan’s first rock festival since 1975 is going on now.

SOUND CENTRAL IS BILLED as a “stealth festival” – the specific locations and times are secret. The bands featured include groups from Iran, Uzbekistan, Kazhakstan with a variety of Afghan bands playing rock, blues, and death metal.

One of those groups is Kabul Dreams, who claim to be (and I’ve no reason to disagree with them) the only rock and roll group from Afghanistan. Watch their music video below.

I work on a college campus in the States, where it seems like everyone you ask has a friend of a friend who’s in a band, and nearly every bar has live music by local bands at least one night of the week. And it’s easy to take that for granted. But these guys have to create and perform without easy access to venues, instruments, or fans — not even fans necessarily, but just someone to play for. In addition to security concerns in case there are any large crowds.

There is traditional music and instruments available, but modern music is much harder to come by.

The festival is organized in part by Daniel Gerstle, manager of The Hive, and Travis Beard, musician in White City, a band also performing at the festival. The goal of the festival is:

“…to ignite youth to be interested in modern music,” said the organiser, Travis Beard, who dreamed up the festival four years ago and has been working on it in earnest for the last two years.

“What we are trying to do is to expose them to new kinds of music so they can get into those styles of music, and also just start playing music. Hopefully we’ll get some kids saying: ‘Hey this is really cool! Dad, can I get a drum set?’ or ‘Mum, can I get a guitar?’,” Beard said. (The Guardian)

There is, of course, a war still going on in Kabul – a kink in any music festival’s organizational process.

From The Atlantic:

Their promo materials play up the war connection –”You’re used to the sound of bombs. Now get used to the sound of metal,” you hear the Afghan death metal group District Unknown growl at the start of their video. But, at the same time, it’s clear that these artists see rock music as a way to escape from war, even of finding some kind of normalcy or apoliticism in an environment inevitably viewed, in the West, through the prism of the “conflict zone.”

The festival is a global one; it started in New York with the “Illegal Rock Bunker Party.” There was a weeklong musician’s workshop in September with performances in Kabul at the Institute Francais Afghanistan.

But it’s the main event the organizers hope will bring in the big audience: they’re look at around 2,000. It doesn’t seem like a big number, but in a country where music was illegal for years under the Taliban, it’s small but significant. The specific locations and times for the main event are being kept secret for security issues – word of mouth is the only way to get details.

Performers:
DISTRICT UNKNOWN (Afghan metal)
KABUL DREAMS (Afghan indie rock)
WHITE PAGE (Afghan hard rock)
MORCHA (Afghan blues rock)
EKLEKTIKA (Kazakh emotional guitar rock)
MARAL (Iran progressive)
MASSA CYGENT (Australia indie)
POOR RICH BOYS (Pakistan indie rock)
TEARS OF THE SUN (Uzbek funk)
WHITE CITY (UK, Australia, Sweden, Afghanistan-based punk rock)

Kabul Closing Night presented by Sound Studies
When: October 9
Where: Institute Francais Afghanistan

Global Closing Night
When: October 21
Where: New York. Specific location TBA

Global Post-Festival Celebration
When: November 2011. Specific date TBA
Where: Los Angeles. Specific location TBA

Afghan policemen fire towards a building taken over by Taliban insurgents in Kabul

Photo: REUTERS

Live coverage of the Taliban's coordinated attack across the Afghanistan capital Kabul, in which Nato's headquarters and the US embassy are among those targeted.

• Blasts and gunfire across Afghan capital Kabul
• Taliban claims responsibility for attack
• Fighters dressed in burkas, police say
• Seven Afghans dead, 15 wounded. No Isaf casualties.
• Afghan police hunt insurgents in high-rise building

Latest

23.00 That's all from the Kabul attack live blog tonight. For our full Afghanistan coverage click here.

22.48 Ben Farmer in Kabul's story for Wednesday's Telegraph on the Kabul attacks:

By nightfall at least six people were dead and 10 wounded as the standoff continued, with Afghan forces reportedly backed by Nato special forces soldiers clearing the building floor-by-floor trying to dislodge the surviving militants. At least six insurgents were also killed.

Coalition officials sought to downplay the success of the attack saying it was a propaganda ploy that had failed to inflict casualties on its intended targets.

21.51 Reports of gunfire continue through the night in central Kabul:

I'm really not happy to still be hearing gunfire. #Kabul #Insurgentsgohome

20.54 Read The Telegraph's editorial comment on the Kabul attacks:

Taliban leaders are unlikely to engage in peace talks if the West intends to pull out of Afghanistan at the earliest opportunity.

The Taliban’s deadly terror attacks against a number of high-profile targets in Kabul yesterday should alert Western leaders to the worrying reality that the Nato-led mission to Afghanistan is running into serious trouble. The fact that insurgents were able to attack the American embassy and Nato headquarters, as well as other key facilities, is a graphic illustration that, 10 years after the September 11 attacks, they continue to pose a considerable threat to that country’s well-being.

20.00 Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, on the Kabul attacks:

The civilians who serve are dedicated, brave men and women, committed to advancing our mission. They will not be intimidated by this kind of cowardly attack.

We will take all necessary steps not only to ensure the safety of our people but to secure the area and to ensure that those who perpetrated this attack are dealt with.

19.20 Two attackers are still hiding on the 10th floor, using hand grenades, according to the BBC's Bilal Sarwary - via twitter - in Kabul.

19.01 Reports on twitter about how the attack was planned:

Hearing from multiple sources, attackers had stored weapons in advance.

17.45 The attackers used burkhas and travelled to the highly-patrolled embassy district in a mini-van, Gen Ayub Salangi, the police chief of Kabul, is quoted as saying, adding the force lacks female search teams to frisk women passengers.

Police teams are now on the eighth floor of the building used to mount the attack but are progressingly slowly because the area is "dark" and "full of cement, steel and paint."

Source: Bilal Sarwary, BBC producer, Kabul

17.23 Locals report heavy gunfire and explosions continue to be heard close from the embassy district.

17.14 Nato has released this footage of Isaf forces inside their Kabul compound firing on militants who attacked their base and the US embassy. They appear to be from a number of countries, including the US.

16.57 This picture purports to show a dead militant in the back of a police truck (warning: image of body)

16.37 Ben Farmer, the Telegraph's correspondent in Kabul, reports on the "complicated, co-ordinated" attack.

16.35 This is the building in which Afghan police are hunting for insurgents who fired on the US embassy.

16.27 Afghan security forces are still trying to take control of the building where attackers are hiding, according to local reports.

15.39 American diplomats will continue to work in Afghanistan, Hilary Clinton, US secretary of state, said.

"The civilians who serve... will not be intimidated by this kind of cowardly attack," AFP quoted her as saying.

15.34 A third fighter has been shot dead by police, leaving two still firing, according to local reports. Isaf tweets:

ISAF
ISAFmedia

IMINT: SEAL and PJ Rescuing their Buds

via Kit Up! by Christian on 8/2/11

A great shot of an Air Force PJ and his SEAL counterpart hauling a wounded Afghan trooper up a hillside after an engagement.

I assume this is a “white” SEAL, but can’t be sure. But you can see the emotion on the Afghan’s face in the background that things definitely went tits up during this op.

(Gouge: Scutrocity)

Kandahar, Afghanistan: The mayor of Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban, was killed in a suicide bombing on Wednesday, police said.

Ghulam Haidar Hameedi died when a suicide bomber set off explosives hidden in his turban when the mayor was addressing citizens in the courtyard of the city hall, police General Abdul Raziq told Agencies

IMINT: Kiwi SAS in Hotel Raid

via Kit Up! by christian on 6/29/11

One of the baddest assed pics to come out of Afghanistan. It’s some of the assaulters who broke the enemy siege of the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. These guys are truly harder than woodpecker lips. I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be a target of these guys…

[Photo: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images]

One thing I noticed: I think these are Quadeyes hanging from these troopers’ gear. Gives you some idea what Tier these guys are in.

 

First Women Deployed on Spec Ops Teams

via Kit Up! by christian on 6/29/11

This morning we ran a story on Military.com that furthered the debate on whether the Army should allow females in front-line, combat arms units.

Army Special Operations Command has deployed its first teams of female Soldiers assigned to commando units in Afghanistan, and military officials are assessing their initial performance in theater as “off the charts.”

In a controversial move early this year, the Army created a new avenue for women to serve with front-line combat units in some of the most specialized and covert missions. The so-called “Cultural Support Teams” are attached to Special Forces and Ranger units to interface with the female population to gain vital intelligence and provide social outreach.

“When I send an [SF team] in to follow up on a Taliban hit … wouldn’t it be nice to have access to about 50 percent of that target population — the women?” said Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick, commander of the Army Special Warfare Center and School, which runs the CST program.

“And now we’re doing that with huge success,” Sacolick said. “They are in Afghanistan right now and the reviews are off the charts. They’re doing great.”

I’ve got to be honest with you, I was a bit skeptical of this program when we first wrote about it on Military.com (the program was originally called “female engagement teams” rather than the new “cultural support teams”) back in February, but after seeing the picture above, I was impressed. Sacolick is right: for the Special Forces mission to succeed, the force needs “enablers” like these gutsy women every bit as much as it needs JTACs. Their training program is sound and they gain valuable combat experience (and an SF combat patch) before going back to their parent units.

We’ll see how this evolves — I could see these women getting a bit more specialized training so that they actually could “fight their way in” if they need to. Having them on the ground as early as possible would certainly help.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]