Word: quetta
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...colors that Hamad Alokzai noticed. The gaunt Afghan, with a beard like matted wool and gaudy silver rings on his fingers, had returned to Afghanistan from exile in Quetta, Pakistan, to check on his former comrades. On Thursday night he sat with his old Taliban commander under blankets in a pickup truck, safely tucked away in the hills outside Kandahar. "The bombs make a sound, then you see green lights falling through the sky," the commander told Alokzai. "The missiles have flashing yellow lights." That night, Alokzai counted 30 missiles striking targets around the city: "It was like Kandahar...
...snapping up the rations, but even if everyone were willing to eat them, the roughly quarter-million U.S. food packets dropped last week couldn't begin to blunt the nation's hunger. Though the country's borders are officially closed, refugees are beginning to trickle over the mountains into Quetta and Peshawar...
...magnificent carpet in his vast reception room, Shirzai holds court daily, propped against a bolster, surrounded by whispering attendants and discreetly armed bodyguards. For the past month, a steady stream of low-level tribal leaders from across the border in Afghanistan has appeared at his ornate doors in Quetta, Pakistan, seeking an audience with a man they expect will soon return from a five-year exile. His contacts and prominence--Shirzai heads an ancient and powerful clan--make him a strong contender to replace the local Taliban leaders if they fall in the southern region of Kandahar where...
...Quetta. It's over a month since the September 11 madness, and my wardrobe is wearing thin. I was rushed here from an assignment in Cambodia, and all I have are two extra shirts, a pair of trousers and my swim suit - hardly useful attire for covering a war in a desert when the nights are turning cold and sharp. There's ice on the pomegranate trees. So I went out and bought one of these heavy woolen shawls in the bazaar. Good camoflague, too. I thought I'd blend right in. But instead of looking noble and chic...
...example: I was sitting in a carpet shop in Quetta, drinking green tea with some Afghan traders. First they talked about how their investment in opium had taken a beating (the price dropped from $700 a kilo to $200 since Sept 11th, because the Taliban commanders who'd stockpiled tons of opium were nervously selling it off), and then the conversation turned to the dud Cruise missiles which had landed around Kandahar. These traders shifted eagerly on their stacks of plum-dark Bokharas and somber tribal Baluch carpets...