Word: shahs
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...battle of Shah-i-Kot is over, but its lessons are that America's military commitment in Afghanistan may last longer, and be more extensive and dangerous than expected. U.S. and allied forces had by Wednesday secured control of the valley that had seen the biggest battle of the Afghan campaign, in which eight American soldiers and scores of enemy personnel died...
...battle began, the enemy forces in Shah-i-Kot were reinforced from the surrounding areas. Many may have been al-Qaeda fighters who'd gone to ground in the area, but local lore had it that this was primarily a Taliban force, reinforced by local sympathizers from Pashtun communities on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. And the enemy had help: U.S. and allied forces were forced to guard their backs in the battle zone against harassment by locals sympathetic to those holed up in the mountain fortress...
...sides of the same coin. The Americans have always known that Paktia province, where the fighting is taking place, is bandit country. (Ironically, the new governor of the province, and Karzai's voice there, is an American citizen: Taj Muhammad Wardak spent the past decade in Los Angeles.) Shah-i-Kot was a well-known base for the mujahedin fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s; indeed, the Soviets never took the valley. The soft shale on the ridges is ideal for the construction of caves. One cave, visited last week by a TIME reporter, was at least 36 m deep...
...while." In the war against terrorism, more American casualties are inevitable. One day, perhaps, Americans will tire of the slow drip of deaths?three here, five there?of the sort that old colonial powers like France and Britain once learned to endure. That hasn't happened yet; Shah-i-Kot marks the first time in many years that Americans have died in battle on a foreign field without a sense of outrage and shame at home. After 18 Army Rangers and special forces died at the battle of Mogadishu in 1993?the subject of the film Black Hawk Down?some...
...years preceding the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the dining tables of the Pahlavi court in Tehran were piled high with the freshest beluga caviar, though the Shah himself was known to loathe the stuff. Consumed in the region for hundreds of years, beluga and other caviar varieties have long been prized and, when exported, carry a commensurate price tag. In duty-free shops in Europe, top-quality sturgeon roe can sell for nearly $1,500 for 250 grams. Like oil, caviar has been black gold to Iran and its Caspian neighbors...