Free Republic

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct. 5 - "Don't be harsh to the people!" President Hamid Karzai beseeched his security detail, which was bearing down on an overly eager crowd with sticks and automatic weapons. "They will calm themselves!" Below the stage, white pigeons meant to symbolize peace were tentatively stepping out of their coop. Soon Afghanistan's president tried to do the same. "If you sit in your place, I will come say hello to each one of you," Mr. Karzai told the surging crowd, and then he marched off the stage toward the throng. He did not get far before his guards...

KABUL, Aug 13 (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai stripped powerful warlord Ismail Khan of his post as military commander of western Afghanistan in a major reshuffle of provincial governors and officials, the state Bakhtar news agency and officials said on Wednesday. The National Security Council decided Khan could not retain his post as military commander while governor of Herat province it said, citing a decree by Karzai who said earlier this year that officials could not hold both military and civil posts. A new Herat military commander would be named shortly, Bakhtar said. Human rights organisations have accused...