This article first appeared in The Edge Review

By LUKE HUNT / Kabul
The sound of gunfire rang out across Kabul. Mobs were rampaging through the streets. Foreign and Afghan troops, fearing the capital was under attack, reached for their guns as civilians scampered for cover.

It was September 11, the 12th anniversary of the al-Qaeda strikes on New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, and across Afghanistan security was tight and tensions high.

The mood quickly brightened when troops realized their reaction was misguided. While bombings and firefights were being reported from the countryside, Kabul was not under attack – it was a false alarm. Afghanistan had just defeated old rivals India 2-0, winning the South Asia Football Federation Championship.

Such a victory was unprecedented and impossible when the Taliban ruled here. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion, Kabul Football Stadium was used for weekly public executions and the surgical removal of limbs from hapless thieves who had the misfortune of being caught.

But those days are long gone and thousands of Afghan football supporters took to the streets like Brazilians after a World Cup victory and gave their war-beleaguered country something to cheer.

Despite the ongoing bloody insurgencies, this country has improved dramatically since the dark years of the Taliban. Too many lives have been lost and billions of dollars wasted, but Afghanistan has moved beyond the current basket case ranks of Libya, Egypt and Syria.

In 1998, Afghanistan was perhaps the only country on the planet not to be ranked on the United Nations Human Development Index. Last year, it filled the 175thspot, with the final 12 positions all taken up by African countries.

To be sure, daunting challenges persist.

“This country is being promoted, but it’s not fast enough and it’s still very dangerous,” one Afghan elder, a Tajik, said.  “There is still a lot to worry about.”

Much of those concerns are about the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is winding down its U.S.-led operations and is set for a complete withdrawal by the end of next year, with a handover to the Afghan National Army (ANA). Taliban attacks are continuing amid reports the Islamic militia is recruiting heavily among the ethnic Pashtu and regrouping inside Pakistan’s borders for an all-out offensive once the pullout is completed.

In the meantime, the country’s harried bureaucracy is struggling with preparations for presidential elections that are widely expected to be held in early April when President Hamid Karzai will stand down, having completed his mandated two terms.

He says he’d prefer to see a small number of candidates standing as opposed to the mess created by the 40-odd politicians who stood for president in 2009.

Abdullah Abdullah, a close runner-up four years ago and Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, are among the early favourites. Both have broad appeal and are known quantities.

Abdullah has the added advantage of having been a close friend of Ahmad Shah Masood, who led the Northern Alliance against Taliban occupation and was assassinated shortly before the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.

But it’s the presence of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf — a controversial warlord and former regional commander whose links to al-Qaeda stretch from here to Africa and the Southern Philippines – that has raised eyebrows and perhaps best reflects the complexities of Afghanistan’s constantly shifting allegiances.

Sayyaf’s strength, according to American-based Afghan author and academic Philip Smucker, is that he comes from a warlord base, a position of strength that Afghans find politically attractive.

Other potential candidats already noted by Karzai include his own brother, Qayum Karzai, current Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Omar Daudzai and former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.

“There are alternative candidates, but their problem is they don’t come from a warlord base,” Smucker said. “These people are intellectuals and they don’t necessarily resonate with the broader population.”

Sayyaf also trained Filipino militants in Africa who returned home and established the Abu Sayyaf, a group synonymous with banditry and kidnappings that is calling for an Islamic homeland in the Southern Philippines while battling U.S. troops there.

Nevertheless, Gavin Greenwood, a regional security analyst with Hong Kong-based Allan & Associates, said that if Sayyaf can deliver as president, then all previous affiliations would be forgiven and forgotten.

“The American political class can probably deal with anyone who enables them to leave on the timeline and with a modicum of dignity, but not too sure where Fox News will go with this,” he said.

And from that perspective, the biggest obstacles faced by ISAF are not from unpalatable potential leaders, but from the tribal elders who have backed the U.S.-led international coalition, which has dominated Afghanistan’s rugged terrain for almost 12 years.

They have said the ability of insurgents to roam unchecked across the countryside would make it impossible to provide adequate security needed to hold legitimate elections.

In the past week alone, car bombs and firefights outside the U.S. consulate in the western capital of Herat resulted in the deaths of two Afghans. A day later, a Pakistani general was killed and others wounded when a military convoy came under attack in the Taliban heartland near Kandahar. At least 64 Taliban were killed in separate firefights and a senior female police officer assassinated.

People are now incapable of even registering to vote due to an overwhelming presence of insurgents, said Abdul Ghani Tokhi, an elder from the province of Zabul. He voiced his concerns as the country’s Independent Elections Commission began receiving applications from 2014 presidential candidates.

American forces will be cut by half from a current 62,000 troops by early next year and the number of bases will be slashed from more than 100 to less than 10 once the withdrawal is complete. The ANA will be provided with basic backup, but combating the Taliban, al-Qeada and the numerous affiliated outfits will fall squarely on their shoulders.

Their ability to defend Afghanistan’s social and political gains going forward will be difficult, and April elections will provide a real test of ANA capabilities, assuming that tribal elders are unsuccessful in their bid to have these elections postponed until 2018.

But if all goes well, Afghanistan will have marked a significant turning point in its turbulent history and the authorities might be reaching for bells and whistles instead of AK47s when the country scores its next big win on the international sporting stage.