As he stumbled out of the flooded, filth-filled hole that served as the last Taliban fortification in Mazar-i-Sharif last December, Yasser Hamdi heard a British journalist ask, "Where are you from?" Hamdi, who appeared upbeat even after six days in that besieged sewer, chirped up immediately. "Baton Rouge," he said. Just hearing a response surprised Neil Syson, a reporter for the Sun, a London tabloid. But the actual words floored him. "Louisiana?" someone asked incredulously. "Do you know it?" replied Hamdi.
There doesn't seem to be much doubt now that Yasser Esam Hamdi was born on the bayou. Or that Hamdi...