In (His) God He Trusts

You don't know the face of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the 42-year-old chieftain of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban. The fuzzy photo of him is one of the few known to exist. Omar avoids the cameranot because of vanity (he is half blind, having lost the use of one eye in combat in the 1980s) nor because he wants to hide in the shadows. It's because Islam proscribes representative artwork, and Omar includes photographs in that concept. Religion is Omar's obsessive core, as I learned in my many interviews with him in Kandahar, the Taliban's hometown and Omar's heavily guarded lair. He doesn't even...

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