Is This Your First War? by Michael Petrou Page A

poetry,” he said.
    We got the necessary form signed and drove out of town. A Northern Alliance soldier with a wiry grey beard and an infection or injury that caused one eye to bulge out of his face peered at it and waved us through. We passed beneath the hilltop strongpoint where Mohammad and Wali had asked me to write letters to their mothers, left the car behind and, soon after, our horses. We approached the Northern Alliance positions closest to Taliban lines on foot.
    Our path was sheltered by trees. This was a low-lying stretch of land. Above us the hills were barren, but what little water fell here flowed downhill and fed poplar trees and scraggly brush in the lowlands where we walked. We could see the forest open up ahead of us into a grassy field. Before we got too close, a teenager with a gun over his shoulder and no uniform appeared ahead of us, raised his palm, and motioned for us to crouch over as we advanced the final few metres.
    â€œThe Taliban are across the field,” he said, pointing to a cluster of trees and brush opposite us, about 500 metres away. He shrugged and tapped the top of his turban. “Head down.”
    The teenager beckoned us into one of two bunkers that flanked the path and faced the open field and, beyond that, the Taliban. Ten men and boys were inside, sitting on their heels as they squatted on rough mats that covered the earthen floor.
    â€œ Salam alaikum .”
    â€œ Salam alaikum. ”
    There was much nodding and smiling as we shook hands. All the soldiers touched their heart with their right hand and leaned forward slightly after greeting us. The bunker was two by four metres and too low to stand up in. The mud walls had been reinforced with wood and were painted white. The odd nail driven into the wall supported ammunition clips and, here and there, clothes. There was one bed in the bunker for its commander, Abdul Rahim, who was twenty-one. The only decoration on the walls was a poster of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the assassinated Northern Alliance commander, his eyes hooded and sad. Rahim said he washed it when the walls got dusty. He ordered one of his men to boil us tea.
    Rahim’s story was typical. He lived in Taloqan, was jailed when the Taliban took the city, and fled north when he was released. “My parents don’t know if I am alive or dead, but I know they’re praying for me to be alive,” he said. “It’s difficult here, but I would rather live here than under the control of the Taliban.”
    Rahim said there hadn’t been any casualties at his position for a month or so, since the Taliban had crept across the field at night and attacked them. Most of the time it was quiet. The Taliban soldiers opposite kept their heads down, too, and they were really too far to hit with anything but a lucky shot and a lot of wasted bullets. Instead of shooting, his men called out to their enemies across the field on walkie-talkies.
    â€œYou say you are Taliban, religious students,” twenty-year-old Mohammad Naeem said into a crackling radio that was tuned to the frequency used by the Taliban opposite us. “So why are you fighting against us? Why are you fighting with the Chechens, Arabs, Uzbeks, and Pakistanis? You should hand them over to us.”
    There was no response. Naeem turned to me. “We do this all the time,” he said. “Sometimes we greet each other. Sometimes we abuse each other. I tell them they should come over to the Northern Alliance. They ask us to embrace them.”
    A hissing sound came from the radio handset and then voices.
    â€œWe have no Arabs or Chechens with us,” said the Talib, speaking through the walkie-talkie. “We want to bring Islamic law to you because you are not Muslims.”
    â€œ We are not Muslims? You are the ones who are not real Muslims. You shelter terrorists. You should be ashamed. Submit to us.”
    The conversation continued like this, back and forth. It emerged