Word: haji
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Afghan warlord and opium cultivator Haji Bashar Noorzai could be an intelligence source the U.S. needs to combat terrorism, but he's sitting in jail on drug charges. He has offered to help, and as the wars on both drugs and terrorism rage on, readers debated the wisdom of his incarceration...
Your article�on Afghan warlord Haji Bashar Noorzai listed possible negative consequences of his arrest [Feb 19]. Assured by a U.S. agent that the trip would be "like a vacation," Noorzai went to America to offer his cooperation against the resurgent Taliban. Now in jail, he can no longer supply intelligence, move his tribe away from the Taliban, persuade his followers to give up poppy farming or sway other warlords toward the political path. But worst of all, his 1 million tribespeople will now be convinced of U.S. perfidy, duplicity and treachery and therefore be converted into implacable enemies...
...second and similar incident followed a few months later. Noorzai says he had persuaded a former mujahedin fighter named Haji Birqet Khan, 75, who was close to the Taliban, to come out of hiding in Pakistan and meet with the Americans. But days after Birqet and Noorzai got together in Kandahar, U.S. attack helicopters swooped in and bombarded Birqet's home, killing him and two of his grandchildren. The U.S. claimed it had got wind of a plot by Noorzai and Birqet to attack American forces. Noorzai says that report was erroneous. "He was an innocent man, a tribal leader...
...when he saw the draft list, he asked, "Why don't we have any Afghan drug lords on the list?" An interagency debate ensued, then a scramble to come up with names. Several popped up. And so, on the final list, coming in at No. 10 was the name "Haji Bashir [sic] Noorzai...
...high-profile list of legal contests, if not victories. Ivan Fisher made his name defending Jack Henry Abbott, a convicted killer whose gritty prison memoir, In the Belly of the Beast, was famously championed by Norman Mailer. Fisher is no stranger to bad guys. In the 1990s, Fisher defended Haji Ayub Afridi, a man widely believed to be one of Pakistan's major narcotraffickers, as well as someone who was thought to have worked closely with the CIA during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Afridi served 3 1/2 years for drug trafficking, a verdict that at the time was considered...