The DO (duty officer) woke me up at 0215 and told me what had happened. I told him to wake up O-P and M and meet me in the operations room. Many phonecalls and radio messages followed. Reinforcements arrived and were sent off. The incindent, that has by now been made public knowledge, was one of the very few that have taken place in PO Aybak's area of responsibility. We at the PO were not directly involved, so we went about our business as usual. After a second breakfast we drove out the OCCP meeting and about an hour later to the Security meeting at the Provincial Governor's office. After that meeting the chief of the provincial National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's intelligence agency, invited us to a meeting the same afternoon.
The Americans came along, and afterwards they wanted some fuel. They can get fuel elsewhere, but they say that the Afghans complain about them stealing their fuel even if they pay good money for it. It must also be a much more relaxing experience to fill up at the safe house than out there at a local pump station. There were some representatives of some EU organisation or project or whatever at the PO, who wanted to interview me. I told them that I could spare 10 minutes and no more, which they were satisfied with. I think they just needed an excuse to use our toilet and showers. Some visitors admit it openly - it's quite understandable, as our's are probably the only western-style toilets and working showers between Pol-i Khumri and Mazar-e Sharif.
I spent the evening writing reports on the day's meetings and recovering from the early wake-up. The weekly "Suomi-rep", a paper to the Finnish authorities about how were are doing, had also to be written.
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