That evening Sikander stopped at a house in a small village called Jabeh, where he introduced himself as the young brother of Abdul Latif of Laghar Juy. He asked to be put up for the night under the protection of one of the villagers who was generous enough to offer an evening meal, a place to rest, and breakfast the following morning. Having thanked him for his hospitality, Sikander continued his trek.
Eventually, he arrived in Laghar Juy. It seemed deserted. The men must be off in the fighting, he thought. Leading his mules up to Abdul Latif’s place, he called out: “Sister Razya?”
Razya recognized the voice immediately, and quickly emerged from the rear, where she had been preparing a small early evening meal. There was no burkha; she simply pulled her dupattha over her head as she rushed to embrace him.
Without uttering a word, she cried softly and gestured for Sikander to lower his head to be blessed with a stroke of her hand.
“Sister Razya, where is everyone?”
She looked down.
“What?”
“Ya Allah, Sikander…it’s my Khan. He’s gone, zwey!”
“Gone? Where?” Sikander’s expression paled as he saw Razya’s face proclaim the needless nature of the question.
“We couldn’t get word out to you. Sikander, Allah took him back almost two weeks ago,” she stammered as she described the event that had turned her life on its head in the midst of the bombing and all the other evils of the time.
“Abdul Latif! No! Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raaji’un!” cried Sikander. Despite all the turmoil, he had never imagined losing his old, indestructible friend. “What happened?” he asked, still unable to apprehend the loss.
“After the bombs started to fall again, his heart simply broke. He had seen so much fighting, so much killing. After the Russians left, he was sure that we would finally have peace. But now, with the family all split up and the attacks from America, he just didn’t have the heart to continue living.”
“So, you mean he just…died? Like, from what? Depression?”
“He was never the same after the boys joined up with the Taliban. Their Islam was so alien to what he had always known, ” she explained, wiping her tear-stained cheek with her dupattha and regaining her composure. Sikander listened patiently. “He was praying salaat-ul-fajr and it must have been after the last sajdah…” she gazed into the distance and shook her head slowly. “Huh! Just stayed there, sitting in tashahud without moving! It was as if Allah had decided he should return to him from within the middle of prayer. Allah be praised and may he bless him. It took a while for me to…discover.” Razya heaved a sigh. “Sikander, you should have seen the people who came to his funeral. Even eighty-year-old Younus Khalis was there with Jalaluddin Haqqani and many others, but getting word back to Pakistan was—” unable to continue, her eyes closed tightly.
Sikander felt a counterintuitive and slightly embarrassing sense of joy coming over him as he processed the manner of Abdul Latif’s passing in his own mind. It was anesthesia to his grief, providing something to hang on to. “That’s…beautiful, Sister Razya! Abdul Latif had such a graceful departure from us all! It was a truly enviable death!” Enviable. Yes. That’s what it was. Sikander’s heart fell once more as the tragedy reclaimed its grip. “Is he buried near here?”
“I believe so.” With the hint of a shrug, Razya wiped her face again.
“You believe so?” Sikander asked, stunned by her answer.
“The Taliban don’t let women come to graveyards.”
Sikander permitted himself a moment of relish that the Taliban era might now be drawing to a close.
“Sister Razya, where’s Abdul Majeed?”
“He’s gone.”
“Where?” Sikander asked guardedly, and fearing the worst.
“He…they…they both went up into the mountains. They’ll almost certainly be in Tora Bora now, and…Allah protect themmm!” She wailed uncontrollably once again. “I’ve heard bombs being dropped up there. They’re loud. They’re so loud.” Razya wept as Sikander held her head against his bosom, comforting her as best he could. After letting her emotion drain, he asked about Noor, Fatima, and Amina. She replied that they were all safe and that Fatima and baby Latifa were in the back of the house. Amina was at home with Noor.
Sikander felt as if his weight had doubled as he walked to Noor’s house to meet his mother-in-law and Amina. They, too, were distraught over the absence of their men. Ejaz was safely in Pakistan but Saleem, Amina’s husband, was on the run in the mountains with Abdul Majeed. Sikander knew the location of Tora Bora and thought about whether it was worth trying to go up there to bring back the two cousins in time to depart for Pakistan. But first he needed to know where Abdul Latif had been buried.
Heading in the general direction of the village’s simple cemetery, he found a young man and asked him to show the way to Abdul Latif’s grave. The man began pointing when Sikander interrupted and asked him to lead him there. They walked about two hundred meters to the graveyard. It wasn’t hard to see the relatively fresh, unmarked rectangular mound of dirt.
Seeing it, Sikander paused in silent grief for a moment before raising his hands, palms upward, to offer the Surat-ul-Fatiha. The young man joined him and the two of them said a few more silent prayers. When they were done, Sikander picked up a fistful of dirt and tossed it onto the mound.
As he stared blankly at the grave, tears welled up in his eyes. He saw not the mound but the grinning face of Abdul Latif Khan with his fiery henna-dyed beard, waking him up for the fajr prayer in the Zarghooni Masjid. Through the tears, the image brought a wistful smile to his lips. It recalled ironic words that he silently mouthed; words he had often heard in the last few weeks. Enduring Freedom. As they reverberated in his mind, Razya’s description of his longtime friend’s blissful departure from this world returned to the forefront of his thoughts. Surely now, Abdul Latif was in a place where his freedom from all injustice and oppression, all want and need, would be enduring.
Chapter 14
Qunduz
THE NORTHERN ALLIANCE pursued its steady advance toward Mazar-e-Sharif. The initial pounding of Taliban targets elsewhere in Afghanistan was relentless and effective, and neither the Taliban nor the al-Qaeda Arabs knew what to do. Once the first wave of targeting whatever Taliban defense there may have been was complete, attention shifted to direct bombing attacks on those ground forces that had yet to surrender to the advancing Northern Alliance troops. At the start of November, the first phase of the American campaign was still in full swing, and targets of opportunity, especially supply trucks carrying oil and other important commodities into or around Afghanistan, were systematically attacked. Oil tanker trucks were frequently targeted by F/A-18 Super Hornets launched from the Carl Vinson and the Enterprise, but generally any form of vehicular traffic was highly likely to be hit.
Sikander spent a few days in Laghar Juy organizing the women for the upcoming trek, but before the journey could begin, he needed to seek out Abdul Majeed and Saleem, and persuade them to come with him to Pakistan. As he readied himself, Sikander asked Noor and Razya if they had more specific knowledge of where the men might be.
“They said they would be going toward Tangi Khola, right by the Tora Bora caves,” remarked Razya. “If you need to ask people while on the way, they may also refer to it as Karo Khel.”
“I think I know where that is. Less than a day’s mule ride from here, isn’t it?” responded Sikander. Neither of the two women was able to answer but upon hearing the conversation Fatima hastily put on her burkha and came out of Razya’s house.
“Brother Sikander, stay close to the mountains and head west to Ghoshtara. From there you can pick up a dirt trail, which will continue in the same general direction and take you through Harun Baba all the way to Payenda Khel. At that point you’ll need to leave the trail. It will turn north, but you will keep going west to cut across to Tangi Khola. That will put you right at the base of the mountains. A little higher up are th
e caves. There’s a clear path up to them and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of Taliban to help you.”
“JazaakAllah, Sister Fatima,” Sikander offered his thanks politely.
Fatima wished him “Khuda Hafiz.”
Atop a mule and with the other one trailing him, Sikander left the village, proceeding as Fatima had directed and in less than two hours he was already leaving the trail at Payenda Khel. Throughout the journey he heard rumblings of distant explosions, while etched in the cloudless sky were vapor trails running southwest to northeast and then arcing back in graceful white loops or turning on to the northwest. Heavenly signatures for earthly death warrants, Sikander mused sadly.
The mountains echoed the sound of each bomb blast from as far away as Kabul and Jalalabad. Sikander had heard explosions during his mujahideen days, but the Americans were clearly using something quite different. Even his mule appeared to be spooked by the noises, which was rare, as these animals had spent much of their short lives surrounded by warfare. The sounds grew louder. Sikander decided to dismount and continue on foot for a while. He had not gone very far when he saw a band of black-turbaned individuals heading in his direction.
They appeared to be carrying AK-47s and RPG launchers. Being unarmed, he proceeded with caution, mentally rehearsing how he might negotiate with them to let him pass. They continued approaching, but as they did, it became clear that they were tired and dejected, doubtless having endured fighting or serious bombardment. Sikander judged that they would probably be too exhausted to accost him. The sense of diminishing threat eased his mind but then, an even more comforting sight greeted him.
“Ha! Abdul Majeed! Saleem!” Sikander exclaimed, mightily relieved to see the two men he was seeking walking among the band. Saleem raised his weapon in the air in a gesture of acknowledgment as a weary smile wrinkled his face.
“What are you doing here, brother?” he cried out as they continued toward each other. “You should be safely in Pakistan right now with your family.”
The rest of the troop moved on, oblivious to the encounter, as the three of them remained in place.
“I’m here to try to get you and your families out of Afghanistan.”
Abdul Majeed and Saleem exchanged glances. Despite his certainty that he had done the right thing to be part of the Taliban, Saleem badly wanted to leave this earthly hell. He lowered his gaze, searching his soul for some meaning in all that had recently transpired. Abdul Majeed on the other hand was still coming to terms with his father’s death to give much thought to Sikander’s mission.
“You’ve heard that Abaa died?” he asked, dejected.
“Yes, I also heard how he died…and probably why. May Allah accept his soul in peace. I found a young man to show me his grave, and offered a Fatiha. In fact, I just left Laghar Juy and was coming to Tora Bora to find the two of you.”
“You wouldn’t have found us there,” Abdul Majeed responded. “We’re on our way back from Jalalabad. We came toward these hills to get out of the open country up north.”
“What were you doing there?” Sikander asked, surprised and even more relieved that he had been lucky enough to intercept them here. Finding them in Jalalabad would have been impossible.
“The second day after Uncle was buried we went to Tora Bora,” answered Saleem. “That’s where some of the early bombing had been. Then we heard that the Northern Alliance was trying to take Mazar-e-Sharif and we were on our way to help defend it. We stopped in Jalalabad with Sister Fatima’s family.”
“But while we were there, hell came to earth!” said Abdul Majeed. “Everywhere we looked it was raining bombs. They hit Majpoorbal village and the Sorkhrod masjid. A couple of days later it was Jalalabad again. Three days after that, they were still coming. They hit Morgai and Gere Khel, and on the eighteenth of October a missile just wiped out a family in a truck trying to flee Jalalabad.
“There’s been so much bombing, Sikander!” Abdul Majeed continued. “People, cars, trucks, buses on the road…all of them blown to pieces and with burned out bodies looking like charcoal in them! What’s going on? They want to catch some criminals, yet so many men, women, children, and animals have to die to let the Americans have their badal? Is that their idea of badal?”
“I know.” Sikander sighed. “It’s insane. Totally insane!” Staring skyward, he shook his head, frustrated with the world’s madness and his inability to affect it. “So, how did you end up here?” he asked.
“With that kind of bombardment there was little chance of progress north. We thought we’d return to our families and see if there was a way out of this hole.” Abdul Majeed explained, clearly ashamed of his sense of retreat. “When we met up with some others coming out of Kabul, we all decided to track back closer to the mountains. We just came through Tangi Khola about an hour ago. From a distance it seemed like there was no action this close to the Spin Ghar, so we chose this way around.”
Absorbing the explanation, Sikander refocused on the matter at hand. “We have to get back to Laghar Juy and prepare to leave for Pakistan,” he explained. With no one in disagreement the three of them trekked home, taking turns between riding the two mules and walking.
To the relief of the women, by nightfall, the men were back. It was the first night in three that the two cousins had slept in a bed. The following morning, November 4, after a meager breakfast everyone gathered cross-legged on Razya’s durree-covered floor to hear what Sikander had to say.
“I’m here with the help of the ISI,” he began. “Understand that officially, Pakistan has sided with America and you Taliban are now…Pakistan’s enemy.” Sikander paused to let the fact sink in.
“Huh! If I’d known that the whole country would be getting destroyed because we didn’t let the Americans have Bin Laden, I would have sided against the Taliban,” Noor proclaimed bitterly, glaring through her burkha at a sheepish Saleem. “You’ve brought nothing but hardship! Now this! And for what? Some mindless mullahs who convinced you of their crazed ideas!” She trembled tearfully.
Her angered comments prompted Sikander to ponder what he might have said and when he might have said it, to set his two good friends on a different path. But now was not the time for such reflections.
“What’s your plan?” asked Saleem, anxious to change the subject.
“Well, I did say that this was the official position. But Musharraf has told the Americans that he can’t just switch sides and abandon his men here without risking his own position with the Army. They’ve been persuaded and have cleared the way for an evacuation of our officers, our ISI people, and their Taliban contacts. Pakistan will be flying large transport aircraft into the country over a few nights from the fifteenth of this month onward. If we can make it to the airfield in time for the airlift, Junaid has assured me we’ll be evacuated.”
“Which airfield?” asked Abdul Majeed.
“That’s the bad news. It’s Qunduz,” replied Sikander, lowering his gaze.
“Qun—Up north, you mean?” asked Saleem. Sikander gave a weak nod. “Why, that has to be at least two hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred kilometers!” continued Saleem. “We’d have to make thirty kilometers a day. For ten days straight.”
“While bombs are raining on us,” added Abdul Majeed, propping his elbows on his knees with his head in his hands.
Sikander turned toward the women, unable to see their expressions but aware of them staring at him intently. “There is another option,” he offered cautiously. “It’ll mean crossing the high passes into Pakistan as we’ve done in the past, but we’ll require more mules than the two we have. The distance is a lot shorter and we could stop at Ejaz’s on the way. We should get cell phone coverage once we’re on the Pakistan side, and I could arrange to have Arif pick us up.”
“There was bad weather two days ago,” observed Razya dryly. “A few of the women were discussing it while you were gone yesterday and said that their men had been trying to get out that way but couldn’t get through.”
“If that’s true and we try, but fail, we’ll have to turn back and travel even farther from there than from here. Meanwhile we’ll have wasted valuable time. I think we should discuss it and decide,” said Sikander as he scanned the room.
He waited for an answer. Saleem finally broke the awkward silence. “We’ll need more mules. For either choice, I mean. Do you know any more about the American bombing? Is it likely to remain over the big cities or are they going to block the mountains as well?”
“I don’t know,” Sikander answered, shrugging. “But if Sister Razya’s right, I don’t think we can risk the mountain route. I know Junaid’s assurance about Qunduz is unlikely to be a lie or a mistake. After all, he helped me and several others get here. I recommend Qunduz.
“We could travel along the periphery of major roads, break up into two or three smaller groups about a hundred meters apart and take cover as needed. Their missiles will likely be programmed to attack major facilities, so we should keep as far from such places as possible. That would leave us exposed to their aircraft, which tend to be the ones going after small groups and convoys, but I think if we’re not in vehicles it should help.”
“What about Northern Alliance? How will we avoid them?” asked Abdul Majeed.
“As far as I recall, they’re either in the Panjshir north of Kabul and being met by Taliban ground forces, or they’ll be much farther north, going after Mazar-e-Sharif. It is a risk,” admitted Sikander, “and if we come across them we could surrender to them, appealing to their being fellow Muslims. We certainly wouldn’t want to risk our women and Latifa by engaging them with weapons.”
“May I be allowed to speak?” Amina’s voice emerged from behind her burkha.
Sikander fixed his gaze on Saleem, “Sister Amina, we all need to be free to speak here. Please, go ahead,” Sikander replied. Saleem didn’t stir.
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