The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) consists of troops from the anti-Taliban coalition led by the United States.

Afghans have adopted a relatively calm attitude to the presence of foreign troops, although some warlords maintain they will not tolerate the kharegi longer than necessary to stabilize the country.

In February 2002, there were British, American, French, and Turk contingents in the Kabul area. Western soldiers were very well armed, which caused the envy of many Afghan mujahedeen who had to make do with old Soviet weapons. It was a pleasure for reporters to work with the ISAF. All units had press guys (or gals) who helped with access to military bases and with travel to various parts of the country on board military transport planes or helicopters. Life was not easy for the soldiers as their posts were often fired on by Taliban guerrillas. In some cases, the kharegi created problems for the local population, and for themselves. In one incident in February, British soldiers opened fire in the dark on a car full of Afghan civilians from their observation post in a tower. One person, a 19-year-old student, was killed. Initially, a British ISAF spokesman said the paratroopers had merely returned fire. On learning about the shooting incident, Kabul-based reporters found a family whose story contradicted the official military communique. It appeared the victim, Hamyoon Ishaq, was helping his brother take his pregnant wife to a hospital. She was going into labor, and the family had to break the curfew. The noise and light from the car apparently frightened the British soldiers.

The news did not receive proper attention as the cash-strapped interim government in Kabul did not want to irritate the West. The peacekeepers did not want to show its mistakes. Both positions were understandable.

What was hard to understand was why the international press failed to give proper attention to the incident either. Dispatches from Kabul were promptly sent out, but newspapers and television networks were not in a hurry to report the incident, creating a lot of bad feelings and enhancing the cynical attitudes of many former Soviet-bloc journalists, who worked in Kabul for Western news organizations. The main question asked was: Is the free press really free? I still don't have an answer.

International peacekeepers helped organize a police force in Kabul. Sporting silly white helmets and bluish trench coats, "cops" looked strange on the Kabul streets, especially with their Soviet-made RPG grenade launchers.

Nor were they very efficient in dealing with civilians.

When the ISAF and Kabul soccer teams decided to play a match, the first in many years since the Taliban banned the Western game on coming to power in Afghanistan, and thousands of fans showed up with and without tickets, it was the international peacekeeping force that was in charge of crowd control on the approaches to the city's main stadium. And quite a crowd it was. With the notable exception of women who apparently dislike soccer, a view positively shared by their sisters in most civilized countries, the crowd was made up of males of all ages: from young boys who had never seen a soccer match in their life to mature bread-earners who probably had forgotten what soccer was. ISAF soldiers sealed off the area around the stadium, but smart Afghans managed to find ways in. They kept sneaking through the ISAF's defense lines throughout the match and climbed with the help of friendly fans over four-meter-high walls to enjoy the show. The peacekeepers won the match, but contrary to journalists' expectations, angry fans did not start a revolution, nor did they overturn and burn any cars or kiosks around the stadium.

In Kabul, peacekeepers behaved properly: they were well armed, walked around in threes, and looked sober. The usual picture to see on Chicken Street, the main shopping strip in Kabul, was two soldiers bargaining with a salesman, who looked shrewd and humble at the same time, over the price of a hand-made carpet inside a store, while the third one would be guarding the entrance - security first. Soldiers usually overpaid. Afghan boys, as was their usual way, would stare at the soldiers throughout the process of shopping, but on seeing a cameraman or a photographer, they would immediately start looking into the cameras. I suspect this sudden change of loyalty made soldiers jealous. CIA agents, on the contrary, usually did their shopping on their own. They carried long-barreled handguns stuck into holsters inconspicuously hidden under their thin leather jackets, fluently spoke Pashtu or Dari, and knew exactly what old coins to buy to make a profit back in the States.

To encourage the locals to stay loyal to foreign troops, the U.S. armed forced distributed low-budget leaflets (above), showing happy Afghan children in schools and on the streets, receiving gifts from soldiers.

Several international peacekeepers were wounded during a soccer match in Kabul, as they tried to stop gate-crashers from entering the overcrowded stadium. February 2002.