Word: allah
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...defended since the Taliban first took this terrain north of Kabul in late 1996. Their generals talk of the war on global terrorism but war doesn't get much more local?or personal?than this. "The Taliban has burned our fields, cut down our trees, destroyed our homes," growls Allah Mahmad. "They're making refugees of us, but we're refugees who have not forgotten how to fight...
...Since Oct. 16 limited U.S. bombing has shifted to the zone behind the Taliban lines. Northern Alliance political leaders have expressed a cautious satisfaction. But on the front lines they want more, much more, and they want it now. Staring through binoculars at the headlights cresting the pass, Allah Mahmad can hardly contain his frustration. "If the Americans hit the pass now, they'd cream the bastards," he mutters. "All the bloody terrorists move out of Kabul at night. Hitting the city isn't touching a hair on their heads...
...base comedian, Khwaja, short, tousle-haired with a square face, mustache and three days of stubble, gets one of the Pakistani "terrorists" from across the line on the walkie-talkie. Opening greetings rapidly degenerate into an exchange of obscenities featuring enemy womenfolk and various farmyard animals. Allah Mahmad and the boys gathered around him listening are doubled over in laughter...
...meal of stale bread dunked in thin soup and drink strong black tea. After finishing, two of the boys turn to karambol, a game like pool in which flat counters are flicked across a board. Farid, another section commander, sits intently loading an ammunition belt with machine-gun rounds. Allah Mahmad lounges on one of the beds and talks wistfully of wanting the kind of education for his four sons that he never got. "Right now the two eldest are being taught by mullahs," he says with a laugh. "It's not great...
...doesn't try to sleep before 2 a.m. Guards posted in the ruined cinema and at the gate are changed every two hours and Allah Mahmad makes his own rounds of the perimeter twice nightly. No one sleeps much: there are challenges shouted into the darkness, bursts of fire, the coming and going of guards. At 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. unseen American planes blitz the area near the pass with what look like cluster bombs...