…trucks with ragged burp gunners. Dust near the slums made of sun-dried bricks. Public execution performed at the center of the square supported by the yelling crowd.
Shooted up airport. Blowed up roads. Taliban jeeps.
And the read-hot haze heat rising over the never-ending war.
Kandahar is the place where legal rules are not in force; diplomacy and negotiations can’t help here.
There is no one to rely on but you.
Taliban are considered to be “the children of desert and Allah”. Mostly they are Pashtuns, yesterday’s Bedouins, who lived in the strictest areas of Afghanistan. Their spiritual leader is Mullah Omar from Bin Laden’s entourage. They are said to be born-to be-soldiers that hate being ruled by anybody: neither the English in XIXth century nor the Russians in the XXth. The historians claim they are the only ones, who were not conquered by Alexander the Great.
Director Andrei Kavun:
“It’s interesting to know that before Taliban took our plane crew captives, nobody had taken them seriously. There are lots of terrorist groups in Afghanistan! What’s a big deal about bare-footed people with automatic guns running around and shooting each other? Let them run, let them shoot… but the hostage taking drew attention to the Taliban; the negotiations started, in which international delegations, journalists and television groups began to participate actively. Of course, they wouldn’t have released our pilots at any cost, it would seem too nonthreatening.”
