Word: kabul
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...mission began early in July, when small groups of Afghan resistance fighters infiltrated into the hills above the Soviet military air base a few miles outside Kabul. Last week more than a thousand rebel troops swooped down in a daring raid that raged for eight hours. The attack, the heaviest since Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan six years ago, was a response to the increased numbers of soldiers and supplies, including more than 80 powerful Mi-24 helicopter gunships, that have been flowing into the base over the past two months. Said one leader of the guerrillas who are known...
...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...
...though, Mirwais' stardom has not brought him riches. At one Kabul bazaar, music sellers offer 57 different tapes of his performances, all pirated. At a recent wedding, an Afghan thrust a boom box into the singer's face, unabashedly recording him for future sales. Copyright laws, like road safety and gun control, have not yet gained much traction in Afghanistan...
...last 25 years of scorching battle and exile. "I sing what I feel," he says with a child's simplicity. His father was a famous musician who died when Mirwais was only 5 years old. The family had the misfortune of living in the Char-Deh neighborhood of Kabul on the front line between two warring commanders; as mortars and rockets exploded around them, Mirwais and his brothers risked their lives every day just to draw water from a communal well...
...public by Taliban zealots. So the family buried their musical instruments under a chicken coop in the garden. Another brother left to sell flowers in Iran, while Nur-ul-Haq hawked carpets in Pakistan. Mirwais, who was just 5 years old when the Taliban took over, stayed in Kabul with his mother...