Word: kabul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...midnight, long past bedtime for most children. But in a poor, war-ravaged neighborhood of Kabul, more than 300 men are gathered at a wedding party to listen to the singing of Mirwais Najrabi, a pale, chestnut-haired 13-year-old. He performs in an open courtyard, under the night sky, to an audience that has endured so much suffering and grief over years of oppression, war and mayhem. Yet for this brief, transcendent moment, their burden is lifted by the exquisite purity of the boy's voice...
...Afghan tradition, were silenced from 1996-2001 by the puritanical Taliban regime, which regarded song as un-Islamic, and had many musicians arrested and beaten. Now, three years after the Taliban defeat, singers are wandering back from exile in Europe and the U.S. to a tumultuous welcome, and Kabul's virtuosos have unearthed the instruments they buried in their gardens. Songs blast from Kabul shops, and more than a dozen radio stations flourish around the country. Mirwais, one of the first to sing in public after the Taliban's ouster, is at the vanguard of this revival. Despite his youth...
...three-piece band?a tabla drummer and rabab and harmonium players?were booked every night during the three-month wedding season prior to the holy month of Ramadan, when the partying stops. His crowning achievement came last September, when he won a famous singing contest at Kabul's Park Cinema. That day, Mirwais appeared in an immaculate white suit, handling the audience with the insouciance of a mite-sized Sinatra. His performance blew the other contestants off the stage...
...Bush administration, Islamabad has begun to crack down on its former protégés. Last month, 18 middle-ranked Taliban commanders were arrested in Quetta and Karachi, including Akbar Agha, leader of a Taliban splinter group named Jaish-al Muslimeen, which kidnapped three foreign aid workers in Kabul last October...
...Kabul, Karzai is hoping that the Taliban are now demoralized enough to consider an amnesty. Soon, Karzai is expected to announce a "reconciliation" with all Taliban except Omar and his top commanders. The president's envoys are sending out feelers to former fighters. Olson claims that more than 30 former Taliban officials have accepted the terms, but sources caution that these were bureaucrats, not true commanders. Karzai has been using money and tribal blood ties to split Taliban commanders away from Omar, insiders say, promising them a chance to run in this fall's parliamentary elections...