Pashtun

Attached to one of the Jordanian's regular emails was a few seconds of digital video showing a gathering of men in Pashtun dress.

He described Kandahar as "culturally probably the most significant place in terms of the Pashtun people of Afghanistan" .

The British were only able to conquer part of the Pashtun territory, and even that remained in constant rebellion against them.

The Times said James is of Iranian descent and also speaks fluent Pashtun, one of the main languages in Afghanistan.

These days, the Pashtun form the core of the insurgency fighting against the Afghan government and its international supporters.

But unlike Sunnis in Iraq, the Pashtun and the Taliban represent the majority of Afghans, at least in the south.

Inevitably, this will mean incorporating some of the Taliban and their mostly Pashtun supporters into the political fold.

Several thousand militant Pashtun tribal members, into whose families some of the foreigners have intermarried, form another layer.

Areas on the Pakistan side stretching north-eastwards along the border from Quetta to the town of Zhob are inhabited by Pashtun tribes.

Pakistan does, of course, have ungoverned spaces, in the Pashtun-dominated badlands along the border with Afghanistan.

"Here, we are all of the same tribe, " said a young Pashtun poet and journalist. He had a flimsy beard and eyes the colour of honey.

The $25m reward offered for Bin Laden provoked no leads among the fierce Pashtun tribal populations among whom he lived.

Meanwhile, the remaining unconquered portion of Pashtun territory became the nucleus for the formation of Afghanistan.

They are Pashtun, an ethnicity famous for its hospitality, but tradition is being stretched to its limit.

I studied Pashto with my jailer, who promised, as a Pashtun, to protect me from other Taliban groups.

Purdah is strictly observed by many women in rural areas of Pakistan, including the majority-Pashtun northern belt bordering Afghanistan.

Masri described his prison in Afghanistan as a filthy hole, with walls scribbled on in Pashtun and Arabic.

But, ominously, it is having huge trouble recruiting in the Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is strongest.

From cradle to grave, the Pashtun woman's lot is one of shame and sadness.

The Pashtun tribes have risen to the call of Jihad for centuries, and their prowess at battling foreigners is unmatched.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are still so fragile that neither of them have dealt constructively with the problem of Pashtun nationalism.

For Mr Obama, the Pakistani side of the lawless Pashtun belt poses the biggest threat to global security.

But it is not generally acceptable for Pashtun women to extend hospitality or exact revenge.

But the US could still assist those Pashtun tribal forces that wish to resist the Taliban.

America cannot win over sufficient numbers of the Afghan Pashtun on whom Coin depends.

They are now an essentially Pashtun tribal resistance movement fighting foreign occupation.

So good, he said, that a Pashtun from the south had recently come all the way to Badakhshan on a $100, 000 shopping spree.

From the Khyber Mardan City - Pashtun provinces (former North-West Frontier Province) capital Peshawar, about 60 km.

Until now the Tajik northern sector has been far more peaceful than the Pashtun east and south, where US combat forces are concentrated.

three million Afghans and 20 million of their largely Pashtun relatives live inside Pakistan.

ICARDA's studies in Pashtun Zarghun in Herat province indicate that saffron gives higher returns than the poppy.

A Pakistani man holds audio cassettes of Osama bin Laden speeches translated in Pashtun languages on March 11, 2003 in Karachi.

The greater a Pashtun man's hospitality, the more honor he accrues.

They are mostly Tajik and Uzbek, who are hated by the Pashtun majority.

Atfirst, curious villagers, most of them Pashtun, emerged to chat with thesoldiers.

These are the same Pashtun tribesman whose descendants are today's Taliban.