Tales of U.S.-trained tiger cats terrify Afghan villagers

[Khephra]

Tales of U.S.-trained tiger cats terrify Afghan villagers
Los Angeles Times

QOOCHI, AFGHANISTAN--To hunt the ferocious tiger cat on the Shomali plains north of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, you must move through a maze of walled dirt alleys and dip into the icy fear that chills entire villages.

Along the way, you must interrogate bombastic heroes who say they have wrestled and killed these beasts single-handedly and sift conflicting descriptions of something like a big dog or a fox or a cat.

Just when you are convinced that the whole story is a crazy legend, you will meet children scarred by cat attacks and mourn with a man who lost his grown son to illness after a cat bite.

Whatever it is that is terrifying the villagers of a verdant plain studded with fruit trees and land mines, they agree on whose fault it is: the U.S. military's.

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