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For a large part of their young lives the boys had been raised in a cave.
West of the border town of Chitral, the opening in the wall of the mountain was natural. Over thousands of years, high elevation snow runoff had seeped through the core of the mountain and had eroded the vast cave complex. Just within the small mouth of the cave was a cavernous expanse of interconnecting tunnels and cocoon-like rooms. Most of the rooms within the cave had been expanded using chisels, hammers, and brute muscles. The cave in which the boys lived had grown quite large and housed not only their own family, but also included guestrooms for those who might visit periodically.
Zain was the eldest. His brother was delivered in the cave two years later. Up until their late teens, the cave was the only home they had known. Living in it didn’t seem any more peculiar to them than it had to their distant Stone Age ancestors. The water running through the core of the cave was pure and safe for the purposes of cooking, bathing, and everything else for which water was used in the modern homes in the valley.
The boys never questioned why they lived in a cave, any more than they would think to question their father’s occupation. As far back as they could remember their father had left in the morning with dozens of armed men. Some of the soldiers lived in the family’s cave, while others lived in the various caves that peppered the mountain. A few of the men and their families lived in real homes in the valley below. Their father, Farwan Shallah, would always return home with food he had hunted or the store-bought variety, which came in either a can or a colorful box.
During the day, Zain and Naveed could play anywhere within a kilometer of their cave. There was always someone watching out for the boys’ safety. Reaching out from all directions were well-concealed sentry posts. Although perpetually within a bullet’s distance of a protector, the boys never gave the sentries much consideration. Since the time they had grown old enough to distance themselves from the cave, they had never seen the sentries do anything except watch over them. Sometimes the guards used binoculars to stare out into the distant mountains. Other times, they would rely on their naked eyeballs to watch over the mountain goat trails and the dirt roads that led in and out of the town below. Once in a great while, way off in the distance, the boys would hear gunfire or explosions. But that action was taking place closer to the Afghanistan border, one mountain away.
Farwan began teaching his sons about guns when Zain was ten and Naveed was eight. Almost everything consumed or used in the cave complex had to be packed in, so cans and glass jars were considered valuable objects for storing everything from bullets to bandages. What were not considered valuable were rocks. Their father set small rocks up on top of a dirt hill for target practice. The first gun their father had taught them to fire was an old .22 caliber bolt-action rifle. The gun was light and didn’t have any kick, so it was a good weapon for learning the basics. Like their father, the boys were natural shots. The gunplay was fun and it gave them an excuse to spend time with their father. As they grew older, there wasn’t a lot for young boys to do other than climb the rocks and cliffs surrounding their cave. With a seemingly endless supply of cheap .22 caliber bullets, shooting became an everyday pastime for the boys. Once they had mastered the art of shooting, they spent much of their time in the surrounding hills and cliffs hunting small game.
Upon returning home from one such hunting excursion, the boys entered the cave to see their mother, Noor, waiting for them. When the boys leaned their rifles against the stone wall and handed their freshly killed marmots to her, she didn’t seem the least bit interested in the boys’ offering. She dropped the dead animals on the dirt floor and in a matter-of-fact tone, and told the boys, “Your father has been injured.”
As the word how was forming on Zain’s lips, his mother stated, “He was shot.”
Naveed looked around and asked, “Where is he?”
“He’s down in the valley. The doctor removed a bullet from his side, and he is resting there until he is well enough to be moved.”
This was the first time anything like this had happened. Also for the first time, the boys began to consider what their father did during the day, and then about what he was doing on the occasions he left with armed men—sometimes for weeks.
“How did it happen?” Zain asked warily. At fifteen years of age, he was old enough to discern deceitfulness in his mother’s responses.
“That is not important,” his mother said, dodging the question. “What is important is that we go down into the valley and visit your father. We need to be with him and pray for him to get well.”
Their mother flashed a concerned look as if time were a critical factor. She wrapped a scarf over her face and stepped past her sons toward the cave’s entrance. Out of habit, the boys retrieved their .22 rifles, slung the straps over their shoulders and followed their mother out of the cave.
It was late afternoon and still quite warm. The boys wore their heavy hiking boots and loose-fitting Balochi outfits—a customary outfit worn in Pakistan. Zain and Naveed wore gray turbans. A measure of fabric hung down from the turban, which when wrapped around their faces, protected their skin from the harsh sun.
A dozen hard and tired-looking men were waiting to escort the family down the mountain into the town of Chitral. Several of the men were dressed in the traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez, while others had donned light-colored military fatigues. All men had rifles of some type either slung over their shoulders or carried in their hands. The largest of the men, Asfand, known to Zain’s family by only his first name, took the lead on the descent down the mountain. If their father were the president of their little cave city, Asfand would be considered the vice president. When their father left the mountain, Asfand was always by his side. The older man was as close to an uncle as the boys would ever know. A few men from Asfand’s security detail fell in line directly behind him while others flanked the family and the remaining men secured the rear.
There was no trail to speak of. In the world of clandestine terrorism, leaving a physical trail was a bad thing. Therefore, each time men came and went from the cave complex, they would meander up and down the mountain avoiding goat trails and intentionally walking through low scrub and windblown sand, never using the same path twice, hence never creating a trail that could lead others to the cave.
When the group entered the green Chitral river valley, the sun was bisected by the ridge of the looming mountains. The home of the town’s only acting doctor, a veterinarian and reluctant surgeon, was located on the periphery of the village. The men led the group through the back door of a single-level dwelling, ensuring the home was secure before motioning for Noor and her sons to enter.
The back door emptied into the kitchen, which emptied into a living room, which led to a narrow hallway that connected the bedrooms. The small Pakistani woman and her tall sons entered the last bedroom warily, unsure of what to expect. Lying on a narrow bed in the small room was their father, Noor’s husband. The small bed in the small room made Farwan look larger than he was. Farwan Shallah lay there, awake and alert, smiling at his family as they entered the room. His warm smile put his wife and sons at ease. After all, who smiled when facing death’s door? Noor thought his color looked good and, if it hadn’t been for a tube bandaged to his side leaking a reddish goo into a drip pan under his bed, his sons wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong with him.
Farwan reached out his large hand and clasped his wife’s hand. He gave it an affirmative squeeze. He did the same with his sons, smiling as he felt their warmth.
“What happened?” Zain asked.
“Nothing to be worried about,” his father responded with a wave of his arm as if wiping a slate clean.
“Who did this?” Zain protested.
His father gave the question a moment of thought and said, “It was an American.” That was a lie. Farwan had orchestrated and participated in what later became known as the Kohistan Shia massacre.
The bullet removed by the doctor had been a ricochet from a round that had struck a bus’s steel wheel and tore into Farwan Shallah’s right side. The doctor had told him the bullet hadn’t penetrated any vital organs; he should be fine in a few days, that is, if no infection set in.
The lie he told his sons was important to set the stage for the anticipated conflict with the Americans in Afghanistan. Killing other Muslims Farwan had hated from birth was important, as it had been important to his father, and to his father’s father. Farwan didn’t really know why he hated the Shias so ferociously; he had simply been indoctrinated into the hate via a long lineage going all the way back to 632 CE.
Farwan’s father had explained to him there had been a split in the Muslim religion when the Prophet Muhammed had died. Some Muslims (known as Shias) chose a democratic approach to elect a new leader of Islam, and others (known as Sunnis) chose to follow the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law.
Farwan Shallah didn’t much care about the ancient history or the origin of his hatred for this sect of Muslims. He only knew that his father had hated Shias, as had his grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on throughout the generations. The fact was that Shias were a different type of Muslim; therefore, they must die. It was as simple as that. No need to give it any further thought. The die had been cast and generations of his family had fought and killed Shias or died at the Shias’ hands. For the years to come, Farwan had resolved to groom his sons into men who would carry on this important work to rid the world of non-believers and seek revenge on those who had been singled out via a legacy of hate.
The family stood in silence next to Farwan’s bed, not knowing what to say, or more to the point, what they should not talk about.
“It’s all right,” Farwan, told them. “In a few days I’ll feel better and I will begin to teach you boys what it is to be a true Sunni Muslim. I will take you to a place where they will teach you all the things you need to know. After that, you will join me and my men when we go on missions for Allah.”
With a wince of pain, Farwan held his sons’ hands, and the family joined hands in prayer.