Word: mazar
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...suburb outside the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif last week, Dostum was in campaign mode. Next month the country will hold its long-awaited loya jirga, or grand assembly, which will choose a transitional government. Dostum relaunched his old political party, the National Islamic Movement. Known simply as Jombesh, the group has a platform that rests on secular democracy (despite its name) and respect for minority rights, which translates to a federalist agenda. Addressing a congress of 2,000 party functionaries, Dostum hit out at "extremism" and "fundamentalism." Read: the Islamic politics of Jamiat...
...correspondents can't do much more than find a palatable mai tai. But Alex Perry, who joined TIME ASIA primarily as a travel writer last year, turned out to be different. He not only asked to cover the Afghan war but became one of the first journalists to reach Mazar-i-Sharif after it fell. He was the only reporter to stay at the Qala-i-Jangi fort when prisoners rioted. Now the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund has named Perry the first recipient of its War Correspondents Award. Perry deserves a vacation, and he surely knows where to take...
...minus a few notable exceptions—are back to their old tricks. Do not be fooled by those pictures of Hamid Karzai posing with George Bush and Tony Blair. Everyone in Afghanistan knows that real power resides with people like Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek warlord who controls Mazar-i-Sharif; Ishmael Khan, ruler of Herat and recipient of Iranian tanks and money; and the exiled Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a religious fanatic who currently resides in Iran but who is rumored to be staging a comeback...
...like a Girl Scout. While he was prime minister of Afghanistan in a coalition government, Hekmatyar systematically shelled residential neighborhoods in Kabul. Dostum is well known in the region for torturing enemies, and journalists are already alleging that Dostum has been ethnically cleansing ethnic Pashtuns from his domain of Mazar-i-Sharif...
...stumbled out of the flooded, filth-filled hole that served as the last Taliban fortification in Mazar-i-Sharif last December, Yasser Hamdi heard a British journalist ask, "Where are you from?" Hamdi, who appeared upbeat even after six days in that besieged sewer, chirped up immediately. "Baton Rouge," he said. Just hearing a response surprised Neil Syson, a reporter for the Sun, a London tabloid. But the actual words floored him. "Louisiana?" someone asked incredulously. "Do you know it?" replied Hamdi...