Return of the ‘good warlord’
Ismail Khan seeks power in the new Afghanistan
After Ibn Zuhur
By Fariba Nawa October 2003 POZ Before it was trashed amidst the U.S.-led invasion, this hospital outside Baghdad was both protector and prison for HIVers in Saddam’s Iraq. Have they been liberated — only to be left to die? Sari Zegum holds his mother’s hand loosely, gazing at the straw carpet in his family’s mud
Reconstructing justice
By Fariba Nawa July 17, 2003 Mother Jones Clerical Shiite judges have stepped into the power vacuum in Baghdad. What will the new face of justice be in Iraq? Tucked away in an alley in the shadow of a centuries-old shrine in one of Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods, Sheikh Ra'id Saadi is performing an act for
U.S. curtails Iraq’s newfound media freedoms
By Fariba Nawa June 27, 2003 Village Voice BAGHDAD—The print press is booming here as newspapers rose from five government-run papers during Saddam Hussein's regime to around 150 now. But U.S.-led forces are dampening the mood of the free press by censoring it. The U.S.-led administration here last week threatened to fine or close down
Rumors of abduction frighten Baghdad parents
By Fariba Nawa June 11 - 17, 2003 Village Voice BAGHDAD—Israa Sabah is supposed to be in her seventh-grade classroom finishing her annual exams. Instead, she’s sitting home drawing women’s fashion in her notebook and watching television. The active 13-year-old is too scared to go to school. Like many Iraqi girls her age, she fears
My veil, my decision
By Fariba Nawa May 2003 Unpublished Since the all-enveloping burqa began appearing on television during the war in Afghanistan, Americans became curious, even obsessed, with understanding why Muslim women cover their hair and body. Worn in dozens of styles, the veil or hijab in Arabic has had different meanings at various times in its history,
Bombed and Betrayed
By Fariba Nawa March 16, 2003 Newsday I had a friend I had known for 10 years, an Afghan-American with an MBA from the University of North Carolina who left the United States to work for the peace and stability of his homeland, ravaged by 23 years of war. Farhad Ahad was a role model
Herat Is Where the Heart Lives
This summer, I went home.
Afghans eager to go home at all costs
Refugees undeterred by crime, ethnic violence, warlords' rivalries
Foreign female aid workers feel less safe in Afghanistan
By Fariba Nawa August 9, 2002 The Christian Science Monitor Kabul -- Patricia Omidian looked up through her glasses. Her palm-sized diary was open to an entry on June 8 -- the day a French aid worker was gang-raped by seven men in Pul-i-khumiri, a small town in northern Afghanistan. "It's just starting to sink
