Word: gul
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Afghan colony in the shadow of the old Mogul fortress that still dominates the skyline. On any given night, many of the insurgents traverse the rocky goat paths back into Afghanistan to join 50,000 of their countrymen in trying to gun down Soviet soldiers. Janeb Gul, for example, a 45-year-old wheat farmer, stayed in Peshawar just long enough to buy a rifle and a pocketful of bullets. Carrying a string of prayer beads and joined by three fellow Afghans, he returned to avenge the death of his village mullah at the hands of government cadres from Kabul...
When the bullets run out, he will return to Peshawar to scrape up some more. Men like Janeb Gul are driven by a profound spirit of tribal vengeance that is almost as old as the Hindu Kush. Unfortunately, that same spirit has also kept the rebels from working well together. Liberation fronts and organizations for Afghan unity dissolve as quickly as they are formed. Intertribal conflicts are equally intense. One rebel leader is notorious for eliminating rivals by sending them on deadly undercover missions to Kabul. Complains the Pakistani director of the Commission for Afghan Refugees: "Everyone claims...
...border into Pakistan from Paktia province last week. Explained Alip Jon, 41: "There are too many tanks, and planes are always coming. For every one of us here, two or three are still fighting, but I fear Paktia is done for." Others talked as truculently as ever. Said Gul Amir, 36: "The Russians can't stay in Afghanistan. They are so alien that even the animals hate them...