Handing over chaos in Afghanistan

If you want to know just how bad the security situation in Afganistan is getting as the U.S. prepares to handover operations to NATO next month, check out Mark McCord's firsthand account ("One Day, Hundreds of Voices") of last week's violence. Mark runs the Kabul office of an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce known as the Center for International Private Enterprise. His post shows just how scary the situation has become for brave ex-pats working in Afghanistan:

… A few blocks from our compound, the CARE office (an international NGO) was already on fire and soon the guardhouse across the street from our office was also on fire. Machine gun fire reached a crescendo around 1:00 p.m. as mobs gathered in the street. It wasn’t long before they tried to breech our compound. After damaging our guardhouse and breaking the lights outside our office, the mob tried to push in the front gate. Our guards, buoyed by Tim Bisbee’s exhortation, stood their ground as I pulled the staff back to the safe room in our house. The rioting intensified over the next fifteen minutes and soon the compound just two houses away from ours was on fire…."