Rolling Stone Rides Shotgun with the Taliban

Rolling Stone's Nir Rosen isn't just in militant-controlled Afghanistan. He's riding shotgun with the friggin' Taliban. Read this, now.

Rosen has a knack for reporting from some of the world's most difficult and dangerous places (think Fallujah at the height of the Sunni insurgency), but this kind of access is unusual, particularly for an American journalist. His report gives us a glimpse of how tenuous coalition control is in some parts of Afghanistan. And he also gives us a sense of the more nationalist -- and decidedly less fundamentalist -- flavor of the resurgent Taliban.

In the darkness, we roll into the village of Nughi. We no longer have cellphone reception; the Taliban shut down the phone towers after sunset, when they stop for the night, to prevent U.S. surveillance from pinpointing their position. It is the holiday of Shaab eh Barat, when Muslims believe God determines a person's destiny for the coming year. Young boys from the village gather to swing balls of fire attached to wires. Like orange stars, hundreds of fiery circles glow far into the distance. The practice is haram — one of many traditions banned by the Taliban, who consider it forbidden under Islam. The fact that it is being tolerated is the first indication I have that the Taliban are not as doctrinaire as they were during their seven years of rule.

Rosen also gives a chilling account of the aftermath of an attack on a British supply convoy. Several Afghanistan-based correspondents (most notably the New York Times' Carlotta Gall and the Financial Times' Jon Boone) have documented the growing vulnerability of Afghanistan's main supply routes. On Monday, I'll be taking a big-picture look at the mounting insecurity on Afghanistan's roads -- and some of the newer efforts to counter the Taliban's influence.
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