It's been a day filled with activity and unexpected surprises here in the capitol of Pakistan, Islamabad.
I arrived on an Emirates Airline flight from Dubai about 2:00AM. The Islamabad International Aiport is under heavy guard. A bomb explosion over the weekend damaged several vehicles and left it's mark on the exterior. No one was injured in the blast, but security at an airport already known for it's lack if security is the top priority.
I'm staying in Rawalpindi, the sister city of Islamabad. Over the last several weeks, Rawalpindi has been the scene of several protests against the campaign in Afghanistan. So far during my visit, there's no sign of protests or any public anti-American sentiment.In fact, here in Islamabad, you wouldn't think there's a war going on less than five hundred miles away. Life goes on as normal, and people, though concerned, seem to take the miliary action in stride. Since it's business as usual here in the Captiol, I'm able to see and talk with the ordinary Pakistani about a great deal of issues ranging from refugees to food.
The general feeling among Pakistanis is resentment towards America for supporting Israel in thier subjugation of the Palestinians. It comes up in almost every conversation about the current situation in Afghanistan. There's little to connect the two states, other than religion. Both are Muslim nations, and it's the feeling in the world of Islam that, with U.S. backing, Israel is able to undermine the Palestinians. And they fear there might be no end to the trend.
They also feel that the Afghan people are the victims in America's war on terrorism. It should be pointed out that no Afghan as been charged with an act of terrorism related to the September 11th attack. It's unlikely any were involved at all. But Arab-Afghans, most notably Osama Bin Laden, use Afghanistan as a hiding place, and so that is where the quagmire begins in this part of the world.
The Pakitanis have seen this sort of involvement by the Americans before. The U.S. supported the Mujahedeen (freedom fighters) during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. So did Pakistan, and with U.S. backing, Pakistan armed the Muhajedeen. When the Soviets left in 1989, the U.S. left Pakistan, and there's been civil war in Afghanistan ever since.
The U.S. is lifting economic sanctions against Pakistan to help the war on terrorism, and aid is slowly returning. But the Pakistanis fear that this is only a temporary arrangement with America, and as soon as the objectives in Afghanistan are met, the U.S. will once again abandon Pakistan in the wake of war on it's borders.As an American here, I don't feel that there's any security issue. Pakistan is getting a bad rap in the press, mostly because of the protests. But these protests that you see on television only represent a minority in Pakistan. Most don't like the war, but few protest against it. Those that do get air time on the news networks because an American flag burning makes for good television.
Not every Pakistani is a Muslim extremist. There's a tendency to stereotype in the wake of the attacks, and many Pakistanis can't understand the backlash to Arabs in America. It's also hard for me to explain it to them.
War creates these unfortunate byproducts that can't be rationalized. Another byroduct is the wave of human misery waiting for freedom at the Afghanistan border. Millions of refugees are trapped as Pakistans border officialy remains closed to them. There's simply no support to deal with them.And that's where I'm headed tomorrow - to Peshawar, Pakistans last outpost on the frontier with Afghanistan. For every refugee, there's a story to tell, and a face to show on television. I only have so much videotape.
The refugee camps that are set up in Pakistan are the staging ground for resistance to the Taliban. One organization recieving a lot of media attention is RAWA (Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan). To they Taliban, they're public enemy number one. RAWA works inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps to empower and educate women. Under Taliban rule, women are brutally beaten and isolated from the rest of society. I arranged to meet with RAWA's spokesperson in secret last night here in Islamabad. She wished to remain anonymous, and hidden from the camera in our interview. Her parents still live in Kabul, and if the Taliban ever discovered this, her family would suffer. Her message is simple - let the women of Afghanitan go.
She is one voice and face in a sea of opposition to the ruling Taliban.
The regime's days are numbered, according to President Bush. RAWA certainly hopes so, as does Pakistan. Peace on it's border means less attention from the U.S..
It also means freedom from fear. It's a fear from war that has plagued an entire generation of Afghans.
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Friday, October 19, 2001
OTTAWA DAILY TIMES: Native to Report on Afghanistan Action
KANE FARABAUGH — an 1995 Ottawa Township High School graduate and a reporter for CBS News and WOWK-TV in West Virginia — left this weekend for Pakistan, where he will report on the Afghanistan refugee issue and on the war against terrorism. He covered the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, and left this weekend for Pakistan, where he will report on the Afghanistan refugee issue and on the war against terrorism. He offers a report below, and future articles will appear periodically in The Daily Times. On Sept. 11, Farabaugh covered the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. From Pakistan, Farabaugh will teleconference with Matt Smith’s geography students on Friday, discussing his experiences and accepting questions from the OTHS students.
CHARLESTON, WV - Back in the winter of 1998 - 1999, I worked for the Jesuit Refugee Service Asia Pacific as an Information Officer. It was my responsibility to write about the strife and suffering of the Burmese refugees along the Thailand - Myanmar border in Southeast Asia. Working for JRS, I heard of the situation in Afghanistan.
Thousands, perhaps millions of refugees were streaming across the border into neighboring Pakistan, all fleeing in fear first from the Soviets, then the Taliban. I never had the chance to go and examine the situation with JRS. The time wasn't right.
But now America's at war and I'm a television news reporter. For the past several weeks I've been monitoring the situation in South Asia. I've been trying to understand why there's very little information about the Afghan refugees filtering through the media. All the attention now seems to fall on the concerns here at home, like Anthrax.
But the situation is desperate. For years, the Pakistani government has silently tolerated the influx of Afghan refugees. Now that influx is reaching critical mass, and there's no support structure to handle the wave of human misery now fleeing the rain of U.S. airstrikes and Taliban control.
I'm travelling to the region to get to the bottom of the crisis, and I'm getting there with the help of several local contacts here in West Virginia.
Mrs. Parween Qazi is a math teacher at Riverside High School near Charleston. She's from Peshawar, a town in Pakistan just miles from the border with Afghanistan. She's introduced me to one of my hosts, Dr. Adil Zareef. He's a human rights activist critical of the Taliban, and he's agreed to be my guide through the area. With his help, it's my goal to visit the refugee camps to understand thier suffering.
Before I can get there, I have to get ready. My station, WOWK, is financing my adventure in South Asia. It was a long shot to convince them to send me. Tenacity paid off, and not only does my news director Dennis Fisher back me up on the trip, my General Manager Sandy Benton is estatic we have the chance, but concerned about the risks. Because of her, the station's floodgates were opened to make sure we were equipped with a satellite phone, portable digital camera, and a visa to get in the country.
Which takes me to Washington D.C., and in a stange way, one of the places that ultimately started this trip. There's the Pentagon, a structure with a wound inflicted by terrorism, the springboard to a war far away that I'm now going to witness firsthand. There's also the Pakistani Embassy, and that's where I had to get my visa.
Visa in hand, camera at my side, and notebook in pocket, the trip is about to begin. I'm setting off for a place the some journalists are refusing to venture. Americans are warned to avoid travelling to the country, and protests flare up almost daily in different cities throughout Pakistan. I'm not scared, and I'm not really nervous. I'm excited to go, blessed to have the oppurtunity, and thrilled at the chance to cover an important story largely forgotten by the national media.
Pakistan and Afghanistan inspired author Rudyard Kipling to write "The Man Who Would Be King." In the novel, Peachy Carnahan, a thrill seeker on his way to Afghanistan, runs into a reporter for the Northern Star on a train in India. He thinks twice about robbing the man (Kipling) when he finds out the reporters a freemason. Instead, he says the magic words. "I'm coming from the East and heading to the West to find 'That which was lost'." I wonder if he ever found what he was looking for.
CHARLESTON, WV - Back in the winter of 1998 - 1999, I worked for the Jesuit Refugee Service Asia Pacific as an Information Officer. It was my responsibility to write about the strife and suffering of the Burmese refugees along the Thailand - Myanmar border in Southeast Asia. Working for JRS, I heard of the situation in Afghanistan.
Thousands, perhaps millions of refugees were streaming across the border into neighboring Pakistan, all fleeing in fear first from the Soviets, then the Taliban. I never had the chance to go and examine the situation with JRS. The time wasn't right.
But now America's at war and I'm a television news reporter. For the past several weeks I've been monitoring the situation in South Asia. I've been trying to understand why there's very little information about the Afghan refugees filtering through the media. All the attention now seems to fall on the concerns here at home, like Anthrax.
But the situation is desperate. For years, the Pakistani government has silently tolerated the influx of Afghan refugees. Now that influx is reaching critical mass, and there's no support structure to handle the wave of human misery now fleeing the rain of U.S. airstrikes and Taliban control.
I'm travelling to the region to get to the bottom of the crisis, and I'm getting there with the help of several local contacts here in West Virginia.
Mrs. Parween Qazi is a math teacher at Riverside High School near Charleston. She's from Peshawar, a town in Pakistan just miles from the border with Afghanistan. She's introduced me to one of my hosts, Dr. Adil Zareef. He's a human rights activist critical of the Taliban, and he's agreed to be my guide through the area. With his help, it's my goal to visit the refugee camps to understand thier suffering.
Before I can get there, I have to get ready. My station, WOWK, is financing my adventure in South Asia. It was a long shot to convince them to send me. Tenacity paid off, and not only does my news director Dennis Fisher back me up on the trip, my General Manager Sandy Benton is estatic we have the chance, but concerned about the risks. Because of her, the station's floodgates were opened to make sure we were equipped with a satellite phone, portable digital camera, and a visa to get in the country.
Which takes me to Washington D.C., and in a stange way, one of the places that ultimately started this trip. There's the Pentagon, a structure with a wound inflicted by terrorism, the springboard to a war far away that I'm now going to witness firsthand. There's also the Pakistani Embassy, and that's where I had to get my visa.
Visa in hand, camera at my side, and notebook in pocket, the trip is about to begin. I'm setting off for a place the some journalists are refusing to venture. Americans are warned to avoid travelling to the country, and protests flare up almost daily in different cities throughout Pakistan. I'm not scared, and I'm not really nervous. I'm excited to go, blessed to have the oppurtunity, and thrilled at the chance to cover an important story largely forgotten by the national media.
Pakistan and Afghanistan inspired author Rudyard Kipling to write "The Man Who Would Be King." In the novel, Peachy Carnahan, a thrill seeker on his way to Afghanistan, runs into a reporter for the Northern Star on a train in India. He thinks twice about robbing the man (Kipling) when he finds out the reporters a freemason. Instead, he says the magic words. "I'm coming from the East and heading to the West to find 'That which was lost'." I wonder if he ever found what he was looking for.
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
THIS IS PERSONAL: Ottawa Daily Times
EDITORS NOTE: KANE FARABAUGH, a 1995 Ottawa Township High School graduate, is a reporter for CBS News and WOWK-TV out of West Virginia. He has been covering the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field last Tuesday - shortly after three other hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
It's been chaotic since Day One of the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. As a reporter for WOWK CBS 13 News in Charleston, W. Va., we were just one crew in a sea of media in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Our coverage began Tuesday afternoon.
We got the call the plane went down just minutes after it crashed. The trip for us to get there from Charleston was just under four hours. By the time we arrived on scene, the stories of heroism on board the hijacked aircraft already began surfacing, and our job was to get to the bottom of the horrible disaster.
That task is easier said than done.
Police immediately sealed off the crash site, making the job of getting pictures difficult. Two television crews in the media pool with us attempted to cross the police line to get exclusive pictures, and were immediately arrested. Our first goal was to find eyewitnesses. It was Danny Purbaugh's first day of work at his new job. He was excavating near the crash site, and described the event in horrific detail.
"It was just coming down out of the sky and it made a nosedive right into the ground." He initially thought the plane was a mail carrier because of the paper debris around the wreck.
The rest of us already knew it was a passenger aircraft.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania State Police arranged to take us closer to the wreck site by tour buses.
The scene is surreal.
A crater 8 feet deep and 50 feet wide is surrounded by a tree line charred when the plane exploded. Nothing bigger then a phone book is left from the crash, and investigators wearing haz-mat suits in the crater make the wreck site look like a trip to the moon.
At a press conference later that afternoon, the FBI would not confirm the crash was the work of terrorists. They said it was a criminal investigation, but would not tie it to events in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Even more difficult, they would not confirm that passengers made phone calls before the plane crashed.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge summed it up that afternoon. "It's difficult to describe the range of emotions everyone feels when they not only learn of these incidents today but they actually see them."
When I went on the air later that night in the 11 p.m. newscast, my report focused on what was known.
- The plane had crashed.
- There were 38 passengers, five crew and two pilots on board.
- There was nothing left of the plane.
Investigators were digging in for the long haul that night, setting up a command post and communications tower. The word from the FBI was clear - the investigation was just beginning.
My photographer and I stayed in Pittsburgh that night. We watched what had unfolded that day in the rest of the United States from videotapes. When you report on a single event, there's a tendency to lose focus that a bigger picture is unfolding as well. Our role in all of this became clear that night as we watched the buildings crumble and smoke. We were a part of history, and our reports back to West Virginia and throughout the CBS News network were helping people understand the extent of the crime committed against the American people.
Day Two of our coverage focused on updates and reports.
More information about the heroism of the passengers slowly filtered from the wreck site. The goal that day for investigators was to find the black box from United Airlines Flight 93, and our goal was to advance the story. The FBI update that morning didn't give us any new clues into the wreck.
But Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha gave us some information giving credit to the rumors of phone calls made before the plane crashed. "This black box in this incident could be a key because I think personally there was a struggle in that airplane before it hit the ground. And somebody made a heroic effort to keep that aircraft from hitting a populated area."
That afternoon, we returned to the wreck site. It was still smoking.
Police told us the wreckage caught fire again the night before. This time, more workers were busy in the crater looking for clues and hoping for answers. It was also easier to see the extent of the wreckage. Police confirmed that debris stretched for miles beyond the tree line. Silver shining pieces of the plane could be spotted hanging from the trees.
The state police officer standing beside me as I viewed the site that day was one of the first officers on scene after the crash. He wouldn't go on camera but described what he saw.
Body parts, luggage, papers, and fiery wreckage.
He also said there were cabins and homes in the forest beyond the crater. No one was home at the time of the wreck. And no one would be visiting those cabins soon.
In the broadcast that night, we wrapped up the events of the last 48 hours. The black box was still buried deep in the crater (they would find it two days later) and investigators were planning on being in the hills of rural Pennsylvania for at least another two months. My photographer and I packed up and headed back for Charleston to cover the events unfolding locally in West Virginia's state capitol. But the importance of the wreck of United Airlines flight 93 is still unfolding.
"I can't overstate how methodical and painstaking this process will be," FBI Special Agent Roland Covington told us in a press conference Wednesday afternoon. Clues from the flight data recorder are crucial to revealing the last minutes of the flight.
And the real story that will surface in the coming months is the heroism of the passengers. Knowing that they were prisoners on a stolen guided missile, did they bring the plane down before it caused more destruction?
And just where was the plane headed, and how many lives were saved by their brave sacrifice?
It's been chaotic since Day One of the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. As a reporter for WOWK CBS 13 News in Charleston, W. Va., we were just one crew in a sea of media in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Our coverage began Tuesday afternoon.
We got the call the plane went down just minutes after it crashed. The trip for us to get there from Charleston was just under four hours. By the time we arrived on scene, the stories of heroism on board the hijacked aircraft already began surfacing, and our job was to get to the bottom of the horrible disaster.
That task is easier said than done.
Police immediately sealed off the crash site, making the job of getting pictures difficult. Two television crews in the media pool with us attempted to cross the police line to get exclusive pictures, and were immediately arrested. Our first goal was to find eyewitnesses. It was Danny Purbaugh's first day of work at his new job. He was excavating near the crash site, and described the event in horrific detail.
"It was just coming down out of the sky and it made a nosedive right into the ground." He initially thought the plane was a mail carrier because of the paper debris around the wreck.
The rest of us already knew it was a passenger aircraft.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania State Police arranged to take us closer to the wreck site by tour buses.
The scene is surreal.
A crater 8 feet deep and 50 feet wide is surrounded by a tree line charred when the plane exploded. Nothing bigger then a phone book is left from the crash, and investigators wearing haz-mat suits in the crater make the wreck site look like a trip to the moon.
At a press conference later that afternoon, the FBI would not confirm the crash was the work of terrorists. They said it was a criminal investigation, but would not tie it to events in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Even more difficult, they would not confirm that passengers made phone calls before the plane crashed.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge summed it up that afternoon. "It's difficult to describe the range of emotions everyone feels when they not only learn of these incidents today but they actually see them."
When I went on the air later that night in the 11 p.m. newscast, my report focused on what was known.
- The plane had crashed.
- There were 38 passengers, five crew and two pilots on board.
- There was nothing left of the plane.
Investigators were digging in for the long haul that night, setting up a command post and communications tower. The word from the FBI was clear - the investigation was just beginning.
My photographer and I stayed in Pittsburgh that night. We watched what had unfolded that day in the rest of the United States from videotapes. When you report on a single event, there's a tendency to lose focus that a bigger picture is unfolding as well. Our role in all of this became clear that night as we watched the buildings crumble and smoke. We were a part of history, and our reports back to West Virginia and throughout the CBS News network were helping people understand the extent of the crime committed against the American people.
Day Two of our coverage focused on updates and reports.
More information about the heroism of the passengers slowly filtered from the wreck site. The goal that day for investigators was to find the black box from United Airlines Flight 93, and our goal was to advance the story. The FBI update that morning didn't give us any new clues into the wreck.
But Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha gave us some information giving credit to the rumors of phone calls made before the plane crashed. "This black box in this incident could be a key because I think personally there was a struggle in that airplane before it hit the ground. And somebody made a heroic effort to keep that aircraft from hitting a populated area."
That afternoon, we returned to the wreck site. It was still smoking.
Police told us the wreckage caught fire again the night before. This time, more workers were busy in the crater looking for clues and hoping for answers. It was also easier to see the extent of the wreckage. Police confirmed that debris stretched for miles beyond the tree line. Silver shining pieces of the plane could be spotted hanging from the trees.
The state police officer standing beside me as I viewed the site that day was one of the first officers on scene after the crash. He wouldn't go on camera but described what he saw.
Body parts, luggage, papers, and fiery wreckage.
He also said there were cabins and homes in the forest beyond the crater. No one was home at the time of the wreck. And no one would be visiting those cabins soon.
In the broadcast that night, we wrapped up the events of the last 48 hours. The black box was still buried deep in the crater (they would find it two days later) and investigators were planning on being in the hills of rural Pennsylvania for at least another two months. My photographer and I packed up and headed back for Charleston to cover the events unfolding locally in West Virginia's state capitol. But the importance of the wreck of United Airlines flight 93 is still unfolding.
"I can't overstate how methodical and painstaking this process will be," FBI Special Agent Roland Covington told us in a press conference Wednesday afternoon. Clues from the flight data recorder are crucial to revealing the last minutes of the flight.
And the real story that will surface in the coming months is the heroism of the passengers. Knowing that they were prisoners on a stolen guided missile, did they bring the plane down before it caused more destruction?
And just where was the plane headed, and how many lives were saved by their brave sacrifice?
Saturday, August 25, 2001
Friday, August 10, 2001
Sunday, June 10, 2001
Tuesday, April 10, 2001
Sunday, March 11, 2001
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