FREEFORUM

Kabul fell today. IradOne silent, IradOdin running Russian TV clips. Already hearing in Nurzhan that the MKK boys are called back from leave. Anybody?

Security at the refinery gate doubled at shift change tonight. No explanation. That's not a rumour, that's my bag being searched twice.

HEARD: thousands of refugees coming through the Fergana Rim.

With respect: Afghanistan does not border Irad. Or Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan is in between, and Tajikistan has a lot of soldiers. Anyone coming has a very long walk through three countries.

Bishkek_Rail is correct about the map, which on this forum counts as irony. Logged.

Please, before it starts: we in the Rim are Muslims, not Taliban. My grandfather planted these walnut trees. Already today a man at the checkpoint asked my brother which mosque he goes to. He never asked that before.

fergana_walnut, nobody sensible on this board thinks that, and anybody who posts it will get a bowl of my aunt's laghman over the head. Metaphorically. Mostly.

OneNews at Eight, finally: "regional security alert", MKK reinforcing the mountain passes on the Kazakh, Uzbek and Kyrgyz borders. Same evening the IAC Chancellery says El-Choro riders are going up to the passes too. Both sides, same week, same passes.

Riders from our uruk went up to the pass road yesterday. I will say only what anyone there could see: Gendarmerie trucks were there too, and men from both sides shared tea and a radio frequency.

In 2007 they shot at each other on that road. I do not know if this makes me happy or afraid. Maybe both, like most things in this country.

From NurGaz people: the southern pipeline idea, the one to Pakistan the Americans always liked, is finished. Chevron people "reviewing". Nobody in Nurzhan is surprised. It was always a pipeline drawn on a slide.

Big planes at the base all week, landing at night. More than I have ever counted in one week. I don't know what they carry. I only count.

HEARD: they're flying Afghans in to the base.

Or cargo. Or soldiers going home. Or diesel, given who supplies it. Nobody here knows. Leave it.

Feast of St Janyl today, and The Steppe Family Robinson is on IradOne tonight like every year. In the middle of all this, Homer is still eating kazy at a border bazaar. Small mercies.

Closing the book on this one: no refugee columns in the Rim, the alert continues, the joint coordination at the passes continues. The airlift rumour stays unscored; we'll never know.

cousins_wife_says: 2.5 / 9.

The checkpoint man has stopped asking about mosques. Now he asks if we sell walnuts. Progress.