Afghan vet has no love for Taliban or invaders  October 04,
2001|By Tom Hundley, Tribune foreign correspondent.  PESHAWAR,
Pakistan — Zakirya, an Afghan chicken farmer, hopes his jihad
days are behind him, but he said that if the U.S. or any other
foreign power attacked Afghanistan, he and his four sons would
be duty-bound to pick up their guns and defend the homeland.
Zakirya--like many Afghans, he uses only one name--has no use
for the Taliban. He held a senior position in Afghanistan's
previous government, serving as personal secretary to Ahmed Shah
Ahmedzai, the last non-Taliban prime minister. Zakirya was
forced to leave Afghanistan and settle in one of Pakistan's
wretched refugee camps when the Taliban consolidated its power
in 1996.  Nevertheless, he said he would feel obliged to return
and fight alongside the Taliban if the United States came to
invade his country.  Zakirya, 40, is a soft-spoken, serious man,
not given to the boastful zealotry of the Taliban. His jihad, or
holy war, was against the S