Hope and Horror in Afghanistan

By: Travis Naughton

After the bus carrying Pakistani girls, including a 15-year-old named Malala Yousafzai, was stopped in the street by armed members of the Taliban, one of the extremists demanded, “Who is Malala?” When her terrified classmates innocently looked in her direction, Malala—a bright and outspoken advocate for women’s and girls’ rights—was shot point-blank in the head and left to die. By that horrific day in October, 2012, the United States had been at war with the Taliban and al-Qaeda terror groups in Afghanistan and the Swat region of Pakistan for exactly 11 years. Although a democratic form of government had been installed to replace the Taliban’s oppressive regime and Osama Bin Laden, the architect of the September 11 terrorist attacks, had been killed by U.S. Navy Seals, there was no end in sight to what would become America’s longest war.

See more in this weeks Boone County Journal