Word: mullah
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...another fortified compound we first met the tribal leaders; all vowing Mullah Omar had not been spotted. "Don't worry about anything," said an aged Haji Mohammed Gaffar of the search for Omar, "we can't find anything to make a person worry. It's all peaceful now and the people who will build the roads and wells can come." The sixteen other leaders - all in kameez, vests and brand new army jackets - concurred, talking over each other and contributing to every question. They swore they'd not supported the Taliban, though thousands of soldiers were recruited from here...
...powerbroker people had thought, the governor insisted. I looked at our Taliban gunman. He had fought with Rais against the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley and well knew his authority. The gunman rolled his eyes. The governor went on: Rais and the elders had "confirmed the absence of Mullah Omar". We asked how he could be so sure? "All the people of Baghran are of our tribe, my own tribe (Alizai). I'm quite sure they wouldn't create problems...
...small, wiry man with a hardened set to his face walked through. The throng of elders leapt up. They crowded the man, each shaking his hand, some kissing it, before bringing him towards us. It was Rais the Baghran, the man much of the world believes spirited Mullah Omar to safety. He stopped a few paces short of me and cased me out, looking up and down with a careful eye. I put his age a shade over fifty, but athleticism still oozed from him. For a "white-bearded old man", whose beard is still thick and black with streaks...
...community, with good grace before God coming to them all. This, he said, had not been granted to Omar because "you can't trouble a whole nation for one person." The other was protection given by an individual, with the divine benefit resting with him. "The protection of Mullah Omar, if a person thought it could, may be a particular benefit for one man," he said...
...suspicions were confirmed - there is no hurry at all for Mullah Omar to be found, if indeed he is lost at all. Though the Coalition forces champ at the bit, the Afghans who hold the answers do not want to enter the race. To an Afghan his family comes first, then his tribe, then his "nation" or ethnic grouping, then the country and all Muslim brothers. In the Pashtun south, where Omar is likely hiding, there are time honored and complex ways of resolving disputes, none of which involve giving an Afghan Muslim to foreign infidels. As Kandahar government secretary...