To Protect Foreigners, Afghanistan Shuts Down Their Hangouts --- KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government, battered by a series of pre-election attacks aimed at foreigners in Kabul, the capital, has come up with a novel way of protecting them: Close their hangouts. -- Afghan uniformed police and plainclothes agents circulated through central Kabul neighborhoods on Tuesday and ordered at least 11 restaurants and several guesthouses closed until after the presidential election on Saturday. -- The Gandamack Lodge, a guesthouse and restaurant popular with journalists, was among the most prominent closings. Officials of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, arrived Tuesday morning and told the manager, Nasrullah Nazari, to close the premises and tell his guests to leave. -- Among those evicted was Renee Montagne of NPR, who has always stayed at the Gandamack when here. “I just said, ‘Well, welcome to Afghanistan,’ ” she said. -- One expatriate, who did not want to be quoted by name, said, “They just don’t want another dead foreigner.” -- Other restaurants said they had been visited by members of the intelligence agency or the Afghan police and told that their security was deemed inadequate and that they would not be allowed to open to the public until after the election. Some were also told of intelligence suggesting a coming attack on foreign guesthouses. -- Afghan officials seemed to struggle to get their stories straight about the closings, perhaps sensitive to suggestions they had been unable to protect establishments catering to foreigners, in what had been a busy social scene until recent attacks. -- Sediq Seddiqi, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, flatly denied there had been any such closings, and he said the authorities had merely offered advice to restaurants and guesthouses on improving their security. -- “We have not closed any restaurants or guesthouses,” Mr. Seddiqi said. “Any claim by the owners that we have made them close their restaurants is a baseless accusation.” --- An intelligence agency official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as a matter of official policy, confirmed that an unspecified number of guesthouses had been ordered closed. “It is done for their safety, and after our assessments of them, we decided to request a shutdown for some of these guesthouses which did not have good security and enough guards,” he said. - More, ROD NORDLAND, NYTimes, at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/world/asia/to-protect-foreigners-afghanistan-shuts-down-their-hangouts.html?hp