CEPSAF
Centre for Peace & Security Afghanistan – CEPSAF: Greater Middle Eastern Research and Analysis
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“The odd explosions changed into what sounded like a war; more blasts, more artillery, more machine guns, and plenty of AK-47s” – Chapter 18
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Chapter Eighteen I excitedly told Agha and Mour how the pakoled mujahideen came across as friendly, and how the worries about the mujahideen were unfounded. Agha, with a smouldering cigarette in his hand, hung on my words but made no comment. Mour passed me a plate of scalding ashak, pasta dumplings filled with leeks…
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“The Mujahideen will turn Kabul into a river of blood…Afghans’ joy will soon turn into misery” – Chapter 17
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Chapter Seventeen Agha reassured Mour not to worry because the mujahideen had promised not to harm the pro-Communists, as he took off his right sock in the hallway. It was midday and Agha had just returned home; he’d been away overnight to officially hand over power to Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the head of the mujahideen…
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“But that tomorrow where we’d go to school never came” – Chapter 16
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Chapter Sixteen The wooden door, crumbling with age, had no chink to peek inside.Should I knock, or jump over the wall into the house? If I knocked and someone answered, what was I supposed to say? If that person was Shafih, I’d thrust Mour’s kitchen knife into his stomach. But then I wouldn’t catch…
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“Nothing in Pashtunwali was ever forgotten” – Chapter 15
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Chapter Fifteen Baktash cheered when he found me waiting in the bright morning under the acacia tree. I thanked Khudai for giving me such a loyal friend, and wished Wazir was also there. *** STUDENTS PEEKED AT ME, whispered, or shook their heads in the assembly. I must learn to face my new, embarrassing…
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“I’m not one of those women who’re told what to do. I was born free and will die free” – Chapter 14
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Chapter Fourteen It’d been two and a half hours since Frishta had entered a mud house. The day had turned into a moonful night, and, like a fearful shepherd standing on guard for the wolf’s arrival, I waited impatiently by the corner of a dirt alleyway with a thin stream dug along it. Open,…
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REVIEW: The Lone Leopard — Love, Courage, and One Young Woman’s Defiance in Afghanistan
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Book review: THE LONE LEOPARD, Sharifullah Dorani’s 436 pages, published 28 July 2022 by S&M Publishing House, £2.99 Ebook, £10.99 Paperback, $19.99 Hardcover, https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B6WRCNFK/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i0. (The review was originally published by Bedfordshire Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support, BRASS.) Sharifullah Dorani was a guest speaker at our Annual General Meeting to talk about his newly published novel,…
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Post-9/11 Fear: Bush’s Afghan Intervention to Prevent Attack
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By Dr Sharifullah Dorani* Introduction ‘Fear was widespread, not just in the days immediately after the [9/11] attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they were…worried about another attack.’ Pew Research Center[1] Although later decision-making in the George W Bush Administration was conducted in secrecy and without much deliberation, the decision to…
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“Those fallen from the mountain will get up again, but those fallen from the hearts will never rise” – Chapter 13
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Chapter Thirteen Brigadier and Mahjan greeted my parents in the hallway. A knock on the door, to my anxiety. I pulled the blanket over me. A pause. The door opened, stayed for a moment, and then shut. My withdrawal had worried Mour. Thanks, Khudai, she left without bothering me to join them. I freaked…
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Domestic Factors Behind Bush’s Afghanistan Intervention Decision
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By Dr Sharifullah Dorani* Introduction This article focuses on the role of domestic factors as a causal factor in the making of the George W Bush Administration’s Global War on Terror (GWOT) strategy that started in Afghanistan. As such, the impact of the American public, American media and Congress on policymaking for the GWOT…
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“You’d officially be presented with the medal of The True Daughter of Afghanistan…You remind me of… Nahid Shahid” – Chapter 12
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Chapter Twelve The buffalo-headed Mullah Rahmat lumbered in, followed by the religious studies ustad, Rauf Khan. The mudir told his two bodyguards, armed with Kalashnikovs, to go back to the edara. Instructed us to get some chairs and the students from nine jim. Baktash and I, together with a few others, executed the order…