Afghan symbol for change becomes symbol for failure - Print Version - International Herald Tribune

Afghan symbol for change becomes symbol for failure - Print Version - International Herald Tribune: "Afghan symbol for change becomes symbol for failure
By David Rohde The New York Times
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2006

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan It began last summer.

On a July morning, Taliban gunmen shot dead the province's most powerful cleric as he walked to the main city mosque to lead morning prayers. Five months later, they executed a teacher at a nearby village school as students watched. The following month, they walked into another mosque and gunned down an Afghan engineer working for a foreign aid group, shooting him in the back as he pressed his forehead to the ground and supplicated to God."