Word: pashtun
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...paratroopers into a remote valley in Afghanistan, just across the border from the rugged mountains of Pakistan, where al-Qaeda has re-established training camps. With dogs barking, cows chewing and a watchful camel resting, the heavily armed U.S. force trudged through irrigated fields and muddy Pashtun villages--cordoning off a 3.5-mile-long area and searching each of 150 residential compounds that dangle off the nosebleed hillsides by the Kakh and Khardala rivers. "We aim to get the maximum number of people on the ground at once," says Major Mike Richardson, paratroops operations officer. "It gives us shock value...
...stronghold lies in the tribal band along the Afghan border. Its Baluch and Pashtun supporters are ethnically and ideologically tied to the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan, thus their anti-Americanism. The region is where Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officers believe many al-Qaeda fighters, possibly even Osama bin Laden, may be holed up. Guns are in plentiful supply. Basha Kamal from Khana-Khel village, in the hills behind the turquoise Indus River, slaps his hip and says: "Of course I carry an automatic pistol. That doesn't mean I'm a terrorist." He adds, "But I refuse...
...helped perform in Kandahar last week--keeping Karzai alive. Two Afghan Cabinet ministers have been assassinated this year, and several others, including Karzai, have survived attempts. Given the country's ethnic rivalries and chronic warlordism, the loss of Karzai--a popular member of the majority Pashtuns--could send Afghanistan reeling back toward the chaos that bin Laden found so hospitable. "Karzai has no real power base of his own," says a diplomat in Kabul. "But as a Pashtun leader who has earned real respect in Afghanistan and internationally, he is close to irreplaceable. His loss would be a catastrophe." With...
...leaves for work at 8:30 a.m., always immaculately turned out--lipstick and eyeliner carefully applied, tie knotted perfectly on her olive drab shirt, hair pulled up and arranged under her maroon beret. Inside her black army boots, her toenails are painted a glossy red. But Khatol, a Pashtun, still chooses to wear her burqa while shopping, so she will not be overcharged in the bazaar. "The burqa is the culture of Afghanistan. With or without it, I am Khatol," she says...
PAKISTAN Up in Arms At least 2,500 Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan held a demonstration to protest against an army operation to hunt down suspected al-Qaeda fighters. Pakistani para-milit ary troops destroyed houses where the wanted men were suspected of hiding and detained four people in the village of Jani Khel in the tribal areas near Afghanistan. Local elders said that the six suspects were not members of al-Qaeda but students from a local religious school...