When the Taliban targeted a well-known Lebanese restaurant in the Afghan capital earlier this month, many observers were wondering whether it was a sign of things to come as Western troops withdraw.
(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
The restaurant was located in an area of Kabul considered relatively safe, and it was frequented by foreigners.
Steve Ahern, an Australian who's been working in Kabul with a new Afghan media institute, was one of those who ate there.
Mr Ahern, who's back in Sydney at present, says the attack will change life in Kabul, but maybe not irreversibly.
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To some, it was a place akin to Rick's Cafe, the dark, romantic, almost clandestine restaurant of the World War Two-era film Casablanca.
Western aid workers, Afghan officials, Arab entrepreneurs, foreign journalists all frequented charismatic Lebanese businessman Kamel Hamade's La Taverna du Liban in Kabul.
"He was certainly full of bonhomie and ... you know, that flamboyant kind of restaurant owner who was welcoming and chatting to all the guests. And that's what you look for when you're in a place like Kabul. You're looking for something a little bit outside of where you stay, because, certainly if you're a UN worker or an embassy worker, you might well be confined to your compound for a lot of the time, and you don't get out very much."
The speaker is Steve Ahern, the man awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2009 for his work in media education in Australia and overseas who then took his work to Kabul.
When the Taliban attacked the La Taverna du Liban, Kamel Hamade was among 21 people from at least half a dozen countries killed.
Around the world, reports, often from those who had eaten at the restaurant, pondered whether it was the end of an era, the end of whatever freedom foreigners had in Kabul.
But Steve Ahern, who travels regularly between Sydney and Kabul to help the Afghan Nai Media Institute train the country's young journalists, says no -- not in the long term.
It is a game-changer, he says, but the change will be cyclical, not permanent.
"It won't change things forever, because this is one incident of many like this that have come in cycles and people react to it. There is a resolve from all the foreigners from all nations who are in Kabul to try and help the country achieve what it wants to achieve, and they know that, if they back out when something like this happens, then it's pretty easy for people who don't want the change to happen. They'll just do a few more of these bombings, and all the foreigners will go away and they'll be able to take control again."
From 2008 to 2011, major attacks on two upscale hotels, a smaller hotel and two guesthouses popular with foreigners killed or wounded almost a hundred people around Kabul.
The attack on the restaurant marks a different tack, which adds to the alarm of the moment.
But while the La Taverna du Liban was legendary in some circles and, Mr Ahern says, had a lot of Casablanca feel, it was just one of a wide circuit of venues drawing foreigners.
He says it is too easy to get a distorted view of life in Kabul these days from afar.
"Over here (in Australia), we see the worst things that happen, but Kabul is a big city, and there are lots of areas ... Wazir Akbar Khan, where that one was, is considered a fairly safe and upmarket area. There are lots of suburbs. So, there would be dozens of those kinds of restaurants that people would go to."
Steve Ahern is careful in discussing security matters around Kabul, but he offers a rare insight into how the safe venues - or venues deemed safe - are determined for foreigners.
"All those sort of places are very well-protected, and the reason why a foreigner would go there is because the security team that might be protecting you has already looked at that location and verified that the blast wall is high and that there's the right sort of security, there's what they call a 'mantrap,' where you go in one section, you're searched, and there's usually a metal detector, and then you go through a second door, so that, if anyone was carrying anything, then they could be stopped (from) going into the restaurant. And then, usually, as you walk through, there's a little bit of a corridor with more security guards, and then you get into a courtyard and the restaurant itself."
Mr Ahern says, when he arrived in Kabul, he was given a list of venues considered safe because they had all those security precautions.
The La Taverna du Liban was on the list, but it could not prevent a coordinated attack where a suicide bomber blew himself up at the door and gunmen then stormed the place.
With the security wall and security checks wiped out by the blast, there was nothing to stop them from shooting up the diners.
Mr Ahern sees the attack as a message from the Taliban that it will be putting pressure on the country's national election set for April.
He predicts that what he calls hundreds of Australian non-government and aid workers and those working on projects like him in Kabul will see tight security restraints until then.
"What will happen is the cycle will go back up, and all of the security teams for foreigners will be saying, 'There's a high level of alert now, essential movement only, confine yourself to moving back and forth between where you live and where you work.' And they'll be telling the drivers, 'Take different routes. Don't taken the same route every day.' And that will continue."
But not permanently.
Life in Kabul and other Afghan cities today, Steve Ahern emphasises again, does not match the perceptions he believes many Australians have.
"One is that it's an awful place with troops everywhere and it's a battlefield. It's not. It's more than that. Yes, there are troops. Yes, it is not like walking down George Street in Sydney. But they're just cities. If you think of a bustling Indian city, that's probably the best way to describe a city in Afghanistan. So there are bustling cities where people go to work, send their kids to school, sell things, try to improve their houses and make a good life for their families. And we don't see that because, obviously, it's not 'news,' so it's not covered."
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