The dramatic mountains frame the area where the village of Nuristan sits. Photo by Karin Ronnow
matullah Rashidi, provincial tribal advisor to former President Hamid Karzai.“ People in the summer take farm animals outside and stay in gardens or farmhouses. Uzra and her brother, who was local police, were in her parents’ summerhouse. Her husband was not in the village that night. And her parents were not there.
“ Taliban had already killed her family member. So when Taliban returned, she and this brother stood in the two windows and fired guns. They fought for two hours and she killed four Taliban before Taliban fired rocket launcher and all died— Uzra, her child, and her brother,” Rashidi said.
This 19-year-old woman did what Nuristani woman have to do, said Mohammad
Amin, Barg-e-Matal police commander.
“ All women in Nuristan are so brave,” said Amin.“ The last time Taliban occupied that village they burned most of the houses. The people fought them. But the women were the ones who brought water and doused the fire.”
Uzra’ s fight to her death made headlines around the world.
‘ MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE’ A few days later, Nuristani elders reiterated their request for Central Asia Institute’ s( CAI) help with schools in the Barg-e-Matal and Kamdesh districts.
Not a single school has been built in Nuristan since 2009, Rashidi said.“ We don’ t have a regular school in Barg-e-Matal, only( classes) inside homes. Before I invite media there and had press conference about no schools in Nuristan because of security problem.” But nothing changed, he said.“ Maybe now people are listening about
Nuristan,” he added.
Education is critical for Nuristan,“ especially in the rural areas,” Ghulam Allah, former provincial police chief, said at an August meeting in CAI’ s Kabul office.“ If children are uneducated, insurgents hire them for fighting and it will never end.”
But the province’ s isolation and the years of violence have made it an area where few dare to tread. Its populated areas are hard to reach, perched high in the steep, wooded mountains. The only road in the eastern third of the province is under Taliban control. Latecomers to Islamic conversion, the Nuristanis’ homeland was long called“ Kafiristan,” or“ land of nonbelievers” and these independent-minded people have a reputation for impatience with outsiders.
All these things combine to create“ a certain intangible mysticism,” Jones wrote.
“ Nuristan is the most beautiful place in the world,” Rashidi said.“ It has clean air and good views, green mountains, forest, and clean water. Once they see it, no one will stay out from Nuristan, they will all return back.”
The area where Uzra fought to her death is“ the coldest area in the province, high in the mountains, with snow leopards, Marco Polo sheep, and ibex. Barg-e-Matal people, they keep all their animals in that area for six months because the grass is so good. It is so beautiful that at the time of [ the last king of Afghanistan ] Zahir Shah, he took all his guests to that place for sightseeing and hunting. And last year I took [ now president ] Ashraf Ghani to Nuristan in helicopter and he said,‘ I have never seen such a natural beauty anywhere else, in any country.’”
Amin added,“ Every afternoon has rain for 20 to 30 minutes.”
Rashidi continued,“ The Kunar River starts in that area. Fish there are very tasty. All meat there— goat and sheep, all wheat, vegetables, fruit, even the milk of the animals is better. Everything is pure.”
But now the area is littered with landmines, Rashidi said, deadly remnants of some of the worst fighting between the mujahedin and Soviet Army in the 1980s.
And the entire province is“ saturated” with insurgents, Jones wrote. In 2009, the International Security Assistance Force( ISAF) turned over Nuristan’ s security to Afghan National Security Forces( ANSF). Since then,“ transnational insurgent groups and international terrorist organizations have entrenched themselves and … use intimidation and taxation to both subjugate civilians and depress local economies in order to ensure haven and safe travel from their logistical supply-andcommand and control points in Pakistan.”
In 2010, Taliban invaded Barg-e-Matal,
Rahmatullah Rashidi, Nuristan tribal advisor to former President Hamid Karzai, said his homeland is“ the most beautiful place in the world.”
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