Afghans’ Hajj Prospects Look Grim

Lala Khan sold off about 20 acres of his farm to make most of the money for his holy pilgrimage to Mecca. The rest he borrowed from a relative. The only thing stopping him now, he says, is the United States.

“I can’t go because the United States took our airport,” Khan said Saturday as he stood among hundreds of people milling about outside the local office where thousands hoping to make the pilgrimage, or hajj, had expected to receive passports and plane tickets days ago.

“So now it’s the United States’ responsibility to find the means for us to make the hajj,” he said.

About 20,000 would-be pilgrims are stranded in Afghanistan, more than 5,000 of them in the southern regional capital of Kandahar. They have little or no chance of reaching their goal: Most received visas only a day or so ago. The national airline has only three passenger jets. And the hajj ends soon.

“It’s a very big problem,” said Ahmed Karzai, brother of interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai. “We have no planes, and we have 20,000 people.”

Frustration among pilgrims who have congregated in at least three major cities--Kandahar, Herat and the capital, Kabul--has been running high. A mob of angry pilgrims was initially blamed for an attack that killed the aviation and tourism minister in Kabul--an explanation that was plausible under the circumstances.

For those in Kandahar, there is an added frustration: The United States has occupied their only airport and turned it into a highly fortified military base.

The interim Afghan government blames Saudi bureaucracy and Afghanistan’s lawless reputation for delayed visas and scuttled charter flights. The U.S. blames an inadequate and bomb-damaged airfield.

But those explanations carry little weight with the crowds of pilgrims here, who are sure the fault falls squarely on America.

“I am very angry because when the Americans were not here, we were able to go easily,” said Mohammed Yaqob, a 45-year-old livestock trader from Helmand province. “Now that the Americans are here they have blocked our airport.”

Making the hajj is one of the pillars of Islam, requiring believers with the physical and financial means to travel once in their lives to the holy city of Mecca and walk in the footsteps of the prophet Muhammad.

The hopeful pilgrims in Kandahar, many of whom have been scrimping for years to save the $1,500 needed for the trip, began arriving from neighboring provinces three weeks ago to pay their way, apply for a visa and wait for a flight. They have established a tent city outside the hajj office, where they while the day away drinking tea and waiting for news from inside.

For the most part, the news has been bad. No foreign companies were willing to provide charter planes for the Afghan pilgrims. The national carrier, Ariana Airlines, once had eight airplanes, but five of them were destroyed by U.S. bombing. Then Saudi Arabia refused visas to about half the 5,214 applicants from Kandahar.

The Saudis relented Friday, but it was already too late. Pilgrims from Kandahar did not have enough time to travel to Kabul, from where Ariana’s few aircraft were departing, and reach Mecca before the hajj ends. Besides, many said, they feared mistreatment by northern Afghans, many of whom fought for years against the Taliban-dominated south.

To the popular mind, at least in Kandahar, all would have been well if only the United States had allowed them to catch flights at the former city airport.

“The Americans caused this problem for us,” said Abdul Habib, a 35-year-old farmer from the town of Now Zad in Helmand province. “We are very unhappy.”

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Ralph Mills said he was unaware of any formal request to the U.S. military to grant access to the Kandahar airport for civilian flights to Mecca. But he said that any such request would probably have been turned down for two reasons: The runway is unsuitable for heavy passenger jets, and permitting hundreds of pilgrims on the base would have created an untenable security risk.

On Saturday, the state bank branch in Kandahar began refunding pilgrims’ money. Hundreds gathered outside the bank, banging on the metal gate. Inside, pilgrims crowded bank clerks who counted out short stacks of $100 bills.

Branch director Faisal Ahmad said he had enough staff to give refunds to about 1,000 pilgrims Saturday. He wasn’t sure how many days it would take to pay back the rest.

“We have the money in our bank,” he said. “We put it in a safe, and now we’ll take it out and give it all back.”

For his part, Ahmad blamed the local government for collecting money for the hajj without first organizing charters and visas and runway rights.

“It was wishful thinking on our part,” acknowledged engineer Mohammed Yusef Pushtoon, a top aide to Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai. Pushtoon said the situation has given rise to unfortunate allegations that the interim government is anti-Islam.

“I’m unhappy this situation was not handled properly in Kabul,” he said. “They should have given much more attention to it.”

Khan, the farmer, agreed. This is the second year in a row that he has traveled to Kandahar from his home province of Helmand to attempt the hajj. He is 55 now--an old man in Afghanistan--and he’s beginning to fear that he will soon become too feeble to make the trip.

“I want to honor my God and seek the healing of Islam,” he said.

His comrade, livestock trader Yaqob, said the United States and the United Nations should have anticipated the problem and found ways to provide transportation. Saturday, he was putting off a trip to the bank, waiting outside the hajj office’s gates for the unlikely news that a plane would depart.

“I still have hope,” he said. “Even if there’s only 30 minutes left, we will go.”

*

Times staff writer John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.