Word: mukhtar
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...Even for child soldiers, bloodlust runs deep. Nearly five years ago, while Mukhtar was out fetching water from a stream, his parents were killed by Taliban rockets. His three brothers, two sisters and the family camel died, too. When Mukhtar returned home, the only creature left in the village was a dog, which sat in the dust coughing up blood. The boy used his father's rifle to put the animal out of its misery. It was the first time he had used a firearm, and it took him four shots. Three months later, Mukhtar joined the rebel Northern Alliance...
...Mukhtar is an infantryman in Afghanistan's rebel army. He can shoot a man in the beard from a standing position at 200 m or point out camouflaged Taliban bunkers through miles of dust. His platoon leader says the green-eyed soldier is the finest he has ever commanded, and Mukhtar takes the compliment with a shrug of his skinny shoulders. "I have been in the army for a long time," he says. "So I should be good at my job." Indeed, Mukhtar is a four-year veteran of Afghanistan's draining desert war. But he is only 15 years...
...They also serve a second purpose: putting pressure on Lebanon to police the Palestinians. But the main victims over the years have not been the mobile commandos but the Lebanese families who live in the border villages. Among the victims of last week's raids was the septuagenarian mukhtar (headman) of Hasbaya; he was the 137th civilian to be killed so far. In addition, 402 Lebanese have been wounded and 91 have been captured and forcibly taken across the border into Israel for interrogation...
...been tended on feast days by Melchites, the other by Greek Orthodox. Today the feast is marked by the "throwing of fire"-in the form of flaming logs and foul-smelling burning auto tires-from niches in the cliff. "There is music and dancing and speeches by the mukhtar," says Habib Zaarour, a village youth. "They shoot guns in the air and everyone has a grand time...
Though they have never glimpsed Palestine, barely 40 miles across the low hills to the south, Mayor (Mukhtar) Said el Khatib believes that, "some of them know more than we do about the property back home." It is a knowledge that is cultivated. "When our sons first speak," says Masa'ad Haidary, 43, a holdout Arab warrior until 1948, "Palestine is in their mouths, and each morning before they eat we speak to them of Palestine...