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Plain Of Hope Reduced To Dust
Thursday, January 10, 2002
(Time)
By Alissa J. Rubin
Los Angeles Times reporter

Special To The Courant



"The ruin that you see, the cut trees, the falling houses, all of that is from the fighting."

DAKU, Afghanistan -- Source
From miles away, the ruined houses of the Shomali plain rise like giant sandcastles riven by the ocean.

Their towering walls loom over this broad valley that was emptied by the Taliban in a brutal campaign three years ago. About 200,000 people, by U.N. estimates, were banished from what was once some of the most fertile land in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are gone now, and the people have begun to trickle back.

But the return is at best a bitter victory for the farmers and villagers who used to live here.

"What can I do? I must come back, it is my homeland," said Gul Mamoud, a farmer who escaped when the Taliban swept through.
(More: CTNow.com News Source)
2002 © The Hartford Courant.

Dan