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Carpet Dealers Flocking Home to Afghanistan, Where Bevy of Foreign Workers Brings Brisk Business
Friday, August 23, 2002
(2:37 AM ET)
By Paisley Dodds
Associated Press Writer

And just as the war on terrorism has revived an entrepreneurial spirit in carpet dealers, it has also given artistic inspiration. “This is one of my favorites,” says Aminullah Popal, a 50-year-old carpet dealer holding a small rug showing a plane crashing through New York’s World Trade Center towers. “That was the economic center of the world. Now people are coming here to Afghanistan.” The twin towers carpet is not being mass produced and was made by a Herat carpet weaver who visited New York after Sept. 11. “It was a tragic event,” says Popal. “But just like carpet dealers who used the Soviet invasion in their work, this is also being used.”

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- AP
In a country of crushing poverty, Ghamay Mohammed has sold enough of his intricately woven rugs lately to buy a hulking ruby and turquoise ring, which he proudly displays on his finger.

The carpet business is booming once again in Afghanistan, and Mohammed is one of the many carpet dealers who have returned to take advantage of the foreigners streaming in since the fall of the Taliban.

“Since we reopened this shop, we’ve already sold more than 60 carpets,” says Mohammed, 18, who closed one of his shops on the Pakistani border two months ago to reopen one in Kandahar. “That’s better than what we did for a year at our shop near Chaman” on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

After lean years under the Taliban regime, throngs of foreign aid workers, journalists, soldiers and diplomats have flocked to Afghanistan with plenty of cash to spend.
(More: The Boston Globe News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

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