AFGHANISTAN: Reviving the Songs of Old

A village struggles back

Each night convoys of anywhere from 600 to 1,500 men begin the long march westward. They load down their mules and camels with mortars, heavy machine guns and mines, then scramble along steep, rocky trails through an eerily deserted landscape. Stealing past a government fort and fields still littered with bomb fragments and mines, ignoring the distant thunder of MiGs and flares on the horizon, they cross the highlands along the border and descend toward battle.

The men are Afghans who have spent several years in refugee camps in...

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