Hero contractor recounts fighting off Taliban

For two hours, a civilian contractor held off Taliban commandos with an AK-47, saving the lives of 24 people in a Kabul, Afghanistan, guest house. But while others are praising Chris Turner’s courage, the 62-year-old former hippie refuses to be called a hero.

“The real heroes were the three U.N. guards and the Afghan guards who lost their lives defending all of us,” Turner told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Thursday from Kabul.

In the predawn darkness a day earlier, Turner and more than two dozen others who lived in a walled compound in Kabul were violently awakened by explosions and small-arms fire. The Taliban, who had been concentrating their attacks in the countryside outside the capital, had targeted the compound, where many United Nations workers were living while preparing to monitor a run-off presidential election.

Before the carnage was over, eight people in the compound, including three U.N. guards and two Afghan guards, would be killed. Turner knew them all. “I lived with all those people,” he said.

But no one died among those Turner undertook to protect at the back of the compound.

Surprise attack
The attack came without warning. “We heard small gunfire, and then we took a bomb that set the guest house on fire. It was pretty quick. It filled with smoke almost immediately,” Turner said.

He grabbed his AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition and started getting everybody he could out of the four-story guest house. “We were able to get everybody out the back door that we could. There’s a washroom — actually, the maid’s quarters — and everybody was ushered into there,” Turner said.

Meanwhile, Turner stayed in a courtyard outside the room, hoping to keep the Taliban from killing everyone.

At one point, he saw a suicide bomber trying to climb over the compound wall. “He came over the top of the wall, and I was able to shoot at him and keep him at bay so that he turned around and went to the front of the building and exploded himself,” Turner said calmly.

Modest hero
The bearded American repeatedly rejected efforts to label his actions as extraordinary. The reason he was the one holding off the commandos was because he happened to be the one who had a gun, he said.

Video   U.N. investigators survey Kabul damage Oct. 29: U.N. officials search through the guest house attacked by Taliban gunmen Wednesday as more details emerge on the attack, in which at least 11 people were killed. Richard Engel reports. Today show

“I was the only one in the back of the building who was armed. I was just praying that I could keep them at bay so that we could protect the women and men who were unarmed and unprepared for this kind of violence,” he said.

Turner first came to Afghanistan in the 1960s because that’s where the hashish was. He kept coming back because he came to love the country and its people. He even shot a documentary film there that he titled “Hashistan.”

His current job is working for an Afghan-American trucking company that delivers supplies to U.S. troops, work that he considers vital.

A native of Kansas City, Kan., Turner is described by his parents as a street-smart man whose actions were totally in character. “He always says, ‘I’ve got nine lives and I’ve only used seven.’ I think he knows when to back down and move forward,” said his mother, Helen Turner.

Politics, Afghanistan style
The bloody attack left the foreigners working for the U.N. in Afghanistan deeply shaken. They make up about 20 percent of the U.N.’s 4,500 employees in the country, and there was concern the incident might trigger at least a partial evacuation.

Video   Troops await Obama’s Afghanistan decision Oct. 29: Brian Williams reports from Afghanistan, where troops are awaiting President Obama’s decision on troop levels. Today show

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, reached by telephone from Kandahar, said the attack was meant to warn people away from the Nov. 7 presidential runoff between incumbent Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

The strike was the biggest on the United Nations in Afghanistan in its half-century of work there. It sent the organization into lockdown across the country. The U.N. is assisting the runoff vote, though not conducting it, and the attack raised questions about the already shaky preparations.

Among the dead was the brother-in-law of Gul Agha Sherzai, one of the country's most powerful governors. The man was killed by a stray bullet as he watched the gunfight from a nearby house, a government spokesman said.

Ever-mounting danger
Turner, who survived being shot and imprisoned by the Soviet Army when they occupied the country in 1985, said that Afghanistan has become more dangerous than ever.

Video   Obama honors troops killed in Afghanistan Oct. 29: President Obama salutes the caskets of U.S. personnel who were killed this week in Afghanistan. Chuck Todd reports. Today show

“The security situation here has deteriorated terribly in the last six months, and I think we’re losing the minds and hearts of the people,” Turner told Vieira. “The Taliban seem to have control over the outlying areas and [are] brave enough to come into Kabul and fight.”

But the danger isn’t chasing Turner out of town. He told Vieira he intends to stay where he is and to keep doing his job.

“This is my second home,” he said. “And I think I’m doing a valuable service, not only to the Afghan people but to the American military who need our supplies.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.

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