Afghans have travelled from across their war-ravaged country to the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif united behind one wish: that the advent of the new year will bring them peace.
Up to half a million people are in the city, police said, to mark the spring equinox and the first day of the traditional Persian new year, called Nowruz and celebrated across Central Asia and Iran.Mazar is at the heart of one of the most peaceful regions of the country, but security is tight amid an escalation of Taliban activity in the north.City police chief Abdul Rauf Taj said 4,000 security personnel had been deployed against insurgent attacks and all visitors were being screened at seven check points around the city outskirts.
"Every person and every vehicle entering the city is being searched, we're in full control of security," he said, adding that 10,000 cars, each carrying between five and ten people, had entered the city in recent days.Insurgent activity has escalated in northern Afghanistan over the past year as US-led military efforts to eradicate the Taliban from their southern strongholds have intensified, driving the war north.
The Taliban have established shadow administrations across a swathe of northern provinces, including Kunduz, Balkh and Faryab, and military bases run by NATO allies such as Germany and Norway are being reinforced by US troops in an effort to reverse the trend, military and security officials have said.The US and NATO have more than 120,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting the insurgents, with another 30,000 arriving in coming months, mostly for deployment in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces, Taliban hotbeds.After recent deadly and coordinated attacks in Kabul and Kandahar cities, tensions across the country have been running high ahead of Nowruz amid expectations of Taliban attacks on major population centres.For many people converging on Mazar-I-Sharif's breathtaking Blue Mosque, believed to be the grave of Islam's fourth caliph Hazrat Ali, peace was at the heart of their new year wishes.
The Taliban outlawed this celebration during their brutal rule of Afghanistan -- when Mazar-I-Sharif was never fully under their control-- from 1996 until the US-led invasion in late 2001.Since the Taliban's downfall, Mazar-I-Sharif has reclaimed its place as the centre of Afghanistan's Nowruz festivities, a blend of ancient Zoroastrian rites and Afghan traditions dating back thousands of years.
"One of my biggest wishes has been to participate in Nowruz celebrations here and I have finally made it," said Murtaza Rezayee, a student from the central province of Daikundi.Getting here wasn't easy, he said, as the road traverses the often treacherous Salang Pass, scene in February of one of Afghanistan's worst natural disasters when avalanches buried cars and buses, killing 170 people.
ut he said he had been saving up for five years, and his family sold a goat to help cover his travel expenses so he could bring in the year 1389 at Ali's shrine.
"I will make a wish," he said, adding: "My biggest wish is for peace for Afghanistan. Just peace."
Shopkeeper Besmiullah Abdul Saleem was more pragmatic, hoping the economy improves and business picks up -- as it has after previous Nowruz visits to the Blue Mosque.
"I come every year and thanks to Hazrat Ali my business has been very, very good. I owe everything to this," he said, as a sweep of his arm took in the turquoise tiles of the mosque and the white doves flying over it.But peace was also on his mind, he said, adding: "I think every Afghan will wish for peace before anything else."
For some Afghans, the shrine brings more than just luck and fortune; some believe it also has the power to cure the ill and infirm.
Shepherd Abdul Saleem said he had brought his "insane" daughter in the hope of a miraculous cure from the spirit of Ali."I took her to the clinic in our village but nothing happened, she's as she was before," he said, pointing to his eight-year-old daughter as she sat cross-legged beside him, her wrists bound with a scarf."I have heard from lots of people that when doctors can't do any thing, Ali can."So I have brought her here to Ali's court -- this is my last hope," he said.
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