Word: shah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, calls the recent assault on Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in the Shah-i-Kot Valley an "unqualified and absolute success." But he concedes that pockets of resistance remain and promises to go after them unceasingly. The British last week pledged to help, committing 1,700 troops to the effort. Who are these holdouts, and what are their aims? To find out, TIME embarked on a search for surviving Taliban fighters who refuse to yield. It required weeks of negotiation with Taliban commanders, who finally proffered an invitation to meet...
...monarch also has some personal priorities upon his return. One of his first visits outside Kabul will be to a small farm 30 km north of the capital where he'd once grown grapes, melons and pears. After heavy fighting in the region, Zahir Shah doesn't know if the trees survived - or if they will ever bear fruit again...
Whatever the accommodations, Zahir Shah says he has no ambitions to retake the throne. "My principle is that I am subject to the free will of the people," he told Time during a rare interview at his house in Rome. Sitting cross-legged on a living room couch in his contemporary-style concrete villa in the northern part of the city, Zahir Shah described his mixed emotions on the eve of his return: "It has been a great desire to be back among the Afghan people. But there will also be great sadness and nostalgia for all that has happened...
...monarch spoke clearly and appeared in good health - notably better health than five months ago when world leaders began looking to him to help fill the vacuum once the Taliban fell. Zahir Shah said age is often the first factor visitors consider. "But this is the very reason for my return," he insisted. "I want to dedicate the last few years of my life to confront the difficulties in the land to which I belong...
Those difficulties won't be easy to confront. Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are regrouping in pockets around the country, and there are simmering feuds among tribal and ethnic factions. "The current conditions are not an ordinary state of affairs," Zahir Shah concedes. "But today, we can say there is no civil war in Afghanistan." There was disturbing evidence this month that the fragile internal peace may not hold, as U.S. commanders were reportedly forced to modify their assault in the region of Gardez because rival warlords fighting alongside the Americans were said to be ready to clash over...