Thursday, September 25, 2008

Nostalgia For the Taliban


As Crime Increases in Kabul, So Does Nostalgia for Taliban -- Washington Post

KABUL -- Mirza Kunduzai, 58, a slight man with a short white goatee, had almost reached his house after a day of trading in the capital's open-air currency market when his taxi was forced to stop by six heavily armed men dressed in Afghan National Army uniforms.

For the next week, Kunduzai recounted, he endured one horror after another -- beaten unconscious, hooded and handcuffed, strung up by his wrists and ankles, dumped in a filthy latrine -- while his family frantically tried to raise the kidnappers' astronomical ransom demand of $2 million.

"I was 95 percent sure I was a dead man," Kunduzai said last week. "They said if my family went to the police, they would chop off my fingers and send them to my wife. I begged them to be reasonable. I offered them my house and my farmland back home. Finally, they agreed to settle for $500,000 and released me. I am poor again, but I am thankful to be alive."

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My Comment:
One of the many problems that exists in Afghanistan today.

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