Sublime

Zarqawi’s lieutenants. I come to know them better than I know most of my friends—to understand what still haunts them about their childhood, how a particular string of numbers holds emotional significance for them, the different reasons each gets up every day to fight.

Commander Ghani* has just provided a vivid summation of the Pashtun principles of nang (honor), ghairat (pride), and badal (revenge), which—along with a fourth concept, melmastia (hospitality)—account for the most important tenets in an unwritten, overarching code of behavior known as Pashtunwali that has shaped culture and identity in this part of

The siblings’ identity cards came in handy here, at last; Anabiya was an influential region, and many of its sons were fighting in the Free Army, based in the countryside north of Aleppo.

The Taliban had arrived not to rebuild a country they did not remember, but to rebuild their refugee camps on a larger scale.