In the Belly of the Beast

In the twilight of an Afghan summer, Mazar-e-Sharif brimmed with life and tenacity. On the surface, one could not have predicted that the city of half a million people and center of anti-Taliban resistance was surrounded by bloodshed and bombs, just days away from falling into the hands of a draconian insurgency led by mountain militiamen.

Observing the lives of the ordinary people, I wandered through the crowded streets and overcrowded bazaars. I sat beneath the chinar trees of the famed Blue Mosque — an oasis in the midst of chaos. I marveled at the men delicately reconstructing the sea-blue tiles of the ancient mosque. I photographed youthful faces dancing as they blended concoctions of ice cream and watched Indian soap operas in a basement kebab café as darkness fell.

In the middle of August, my photographer Jake Simkin and I were on a flight from Kabul, some two weeks before the United States was due to abandon the skies of Afghanistan after almost two decades of war. The notorious and deeply controversial warlord — whom I had met more than two years earlier in his Ankara, Turkey, mansion — had returned to the Afghan battlefield to fight against the outfit he helped the U.S. usurp in the wake of September 11, 2001.

A few days earlier, I sipped tea and discussed strategy with his sharply dressed advisory team in their Kabul headquarters. Likewise, I took meticulous notes as I spoke with representatives of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s off ice and exchanged texts with allied commanders loyal to Atta Mohammad Noor and Ismail Khan.

Those who led the newly dubbed “public uprising forces” emphasized the universal message that we have the voluntary fighting force, the will, and the skill, but we don’t have the U.S.-backed central government’s air support and arsenal or the capabilities to repel the enemy once and for all.

Two decades ago, it was precisely this mishmash of dedicated fighters — aided by an angry and determined USA — that brought the Taliban to its knees. It’s only this time, when the Taliban was winning momentum — storming villages, towns, and cities across the