Tag Archives: Kandahar

History, International, Islamabad, Pakistan, Politics, Punjab, Religion

What’s Wrong with Pakistan?

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Why geography — unfortunately — is destiny for South Asia’s troubled heartland.

BY ROBERT D. KAPLAN

Perversity characterizes Pakistan. Only the worst African hellholes, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yemen, and Iraq rank higher on this year’s Failed States Index. The country is run by a military obsessed with — and, for decades, invested in — the conflict with India, and by a civilian elite that steals all it can and pays almost no taxes. But despite an overbearing military, tribes “defined by a near-universal male participation in organized violence,” as the late European anthropologist Ernest Gellner put it, dominate massive swaths of territory. The absence of the state makes for 20-hour daily electricity blackouts and an almost nonexistent education system in many areas.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Life, Pakistan, Politics

Brides of Al Qaeda

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By Iftikhar Firdous

“Who is it?” asks 12-year-old Khadijah as she unlocks the door to her home. Her accent differs from that of a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa native’s — and after she pulls open the door, her unique features further pique my curiosity. Where are Khadijah and her family really from?

Khadijah is one of the thousands of people in Pakistan whose lives have been influenced by the war in neighbouring Afghanistan, a country that has seen nothing but confliuct for three decades. Khadijah is actually the granddaughter of Sufi Hameed Gul, who is famous in this small town of Regi, situated some 12 kilometres from the provincial capital of Peshawar. Although he is a respectable religious cleric, Sufi Hameed Gul’s fame stems from the fact that he is the father in-law of two former Guantanamo detainees.

Gul married three of his daughters, Mahdia, Murshida and Aisha, to men of Arab descent after the Russian-Afghan War.

“A number of Arabs came to our village” he says. “They were mujahideen, and it was my duty to help them in every possible way,” he says, suggesting that there can be no further argument on this point. Three suspected Al Qaeda operatives, Adil Hadi al Jazairi bin Hamlili, Mustafa Hamlili and Abdul Karim, lived in this village for more than 15 years.

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News, Random

“Bacha Baz” Culture

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Afghanistan’s dirty little secret – By Joel Brinkley

“How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face,” 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. “We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful.”

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy’s father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to “touch and fondle them,” military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. “The soldiers didn’t understand.”

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, “Pashtun Sexuality,” startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked – and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it.

Read more >> SFGate

News

Canada’s top solider in Afghanistan fired over romance

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Top soldier in Afghanistan booted in scandal

By Tara Brautigam, The Canadian Press – KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Canada’s top soldier in Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, has been relieved of command after allegations surfaced that he was involved in an inappropriate intimate relationship with a female member of his staff while in theatre, the Canadian military said Sunday….

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