Word: pashtun
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...Afghanistan. While U.S. forces are still trying to track down Osama bin Laden and the remnants of al-Qaeda, the quarry is increasingly a resurgent Taliban. Two years after the government in Kabul was routed, black-turbaned militants are again stalking the dusty villages and towns of the Pashtun heartland. High-ranking Afghan sources tell TIME that the Taliban is trying to unite with the Pashtuns under one leadership. A core of 250 Taliban veterans is recruiting a fresh generation of young zealots from the refugee camps and madrasahs in the Pakistan border tribal areas. Tragic U.S. blunders like these...
Karzai, who in June 2002 was confirmed in his job by a tribal assembly called a loya jirga, was a royal chieftain from the majority Pashtun tribe who, with some U.S. arm twisting, was found acceptable by the minority Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Having no army of his own, he was unthreatening to the country's warlords. With his fluent English, stoic bearing and good fashion sense, he seemed a comforting figure to the U.S. and the U.N. But as he nears the two-year mark on the job, the Karzai model is barely working for Karzai himself...
...whose family fled to the U.S. in 1996, is the first woman in 31 years to compete in a beauty contest as Miss Afghanistan. When Samadzai paraded in her native country's sash at the recent Miss Earth pageant in the Philippines, the Afghan supreme court condemned the leggy Pashtun beauty queen to hell, calling such pageants "totally un-Islamic" and against "tradition, human honor and dignity." Ah, if only all Afghan women enjoyed the dignity Western women are afforded: to be judged not by the hem of their burqas but by the size of their breasts...
...chief aide, Omar Daudzay, told a Kabul radio station that "the talks were initiated at the Taliban's request." But why has Karzai, of all people--the man who rode into Afghanistan on a motorcycle soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to foment an anti-Taliban revolt among Pashtun tribes--responded to their overtures? In a word, pragmatism. The Taliban and al-Qaeda are gaining ground in remote areas, where they have found support among Pashtun tribesmen who feel Karzai's government is too top-heavy with Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara tribal leaders--their rivals for political power. By bringing...
Tribal sympathies in Waziristan appear to lie with al-Qaeda. Moreover, it is a sacred duty among Pashtun residents to give sanctuary to Muslims seeking it. With its rugged terrain, its warrior tribes and its centuries-old hostility to authority, Waziristan is a fitting bolt-hole for Islamic militants, possibly even al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. U.S. intelligence believes he is hiding somewhere near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, 150 miles of which snake along Waziristan's frontier. Last week the Qatari TV network, al-Jazeera, aired a videotape of bin Laden walking with his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri...