Word: sharif
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...stumbled out of the flooded, filth-filled hole that served as the last Taliban fortification in Mazar-i-Sharif last December, Yasser Hamdi heard a British journalist ask, "Where are you from?" Hamdi, who appeared upbeat even after six days in that besieged sewer, chirped up immediately. "Baton Rouge," he said. Just hearing a response surprised Neil Syson, a reporter for the Sun, a London tabloid. But the actual words floored him. "Louisiana?" someone asked incredulously. "Do you know it?" replied Hamdi...
...Jerusalem Both sides want the ancient city as their political and religious capital. Camp David negotiators foundered over the Muslim and Jewish holy places, which sit virtually atop one another. The Palestinians insist on sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif, where their sacred shrines sit, and Israel cannot give up the ground underneath it, where the Western Wall and the remnants of Solomon's Temple lie. By 2001, negotiators hoped they could finesse these demands and could gerrymander the city into an Arab East Jerusalem that the Palestinians could call a capital and a Jewish West Jerusalem that the Israelis...
...anyone doubts the ardor of grass-roots support for the anti-American militancy in southern Afghanistan, Kandahar's cemetery for al-Qaeda fighters bears unequivocal testimony. Hundreds of mourners have descended on the graveyard from as far away as Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul and Uruzgan province. What began as daily homages have grown into all-night vigils. Men, women and children sleep by the graves. Devotees recite the Koran throughout the night. The paralyzed, ill and blind flock to the site seeking miracle cures, which many claim to receive. Men mumble, repeating scripture until they fall into a trance, swaying...
...some areas, such fighting has already started. In the north around Mazar-i-Sharif, ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Hazara warlord Mohammed Mohaqiq have used the hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders as an excuse for a pogrom against Pashtuns. Human Rights Watch has documented 150 separate cases of looting, rape and killing in the area that have sent thousands of Pashtuns fleeing south. There are also persistent accusations that Afghan commanders are calling in U.S. air strikes against rivals, not terrorists. Meanwhile in Kabul, local factions have begun turning their newly acquired firepower on one another...
...anyone doubts the ardor of grass-roots support for the anti-American militancy in southern Afghanistan, Kandahar's cemetery for al-Qaeda fighters bears unequivocal testimony. Hundreds of mourners have descended on the graveyard from as far away as Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul and Uruzgan province. What began as daily homages have grown into all-night vigils. Men, women and children sleep by the graves. Devotees recite the Koran throughout the night. The paralyzed, ill and blind flock to the site seeking miracle cures, which many claim to receive. Men mumble, repeating scripture until they fall into a trance, swaying...