<

Tale of an American Talib
Saturday, December 1, 2001
By Colin Soloway
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Photo Credit: Terry Richards / The Sun Newspaper.

Location -- Source
Abdul Hamid is tall, thin and barefoot in a filthy black tunic. A prisoner of the Northern Alliance, he sits with his elbows bound behind his back with a strip of cloth, his right leg and left foot bandaged for gunshot wounds. Hamid’s face is almost entirely covered in dirt and black soot, but it is quickly apparent that he is not just another beaten and frightened Taliban warrior. Abdul Hamid, age 20, is an American. He is not a naturalized citizen or disaffected Arab-American youth rebelling against Western culture. He is a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle-class American, a convert to Islam who came to Afghanistan six months ago to help the Taliban build a “true Islamic state.”
(More: MSNBC.com News Source)
2001 © Newsweek, Inc.

Thanks, Ed,
Dan