Can you imagine? I can't. This is so sad.
Taliban tries to stop the music in Afghanistan — again
By Hashim Shukoor | McClatchy Newspapers
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Mohammed Tariq was looking after his uncle's music shop one recent afternoon when two bearded men with turbans pulled up on a motorcycle to deliver an ominous warning.
"Where is your uncle?" one of the armed men demanded of the 14-year-old boy. "Tell him to shut down this shop. If he doesn't, we will blow it up."
Within days, Farouq Pacha had cleared most of his shelves of the music cassettes he'd sold on the street for years.
"I was heartbroken when I heard this — and now I work secretly," Pacha said.
Pacha's shop was one in a string of music stores to become a new target for militants many suspect are Taliban enforcers looking for new ways to re-impose their conservative views — even in once-stable havens such as Jalalabad.
In recent months, as the U.S. military and Afghan government have turned most of their attention on Taliban sanctuaries in southern Afghanistan, Islamist forces have made major advances in other parts of the country.
In northern Afghanistan, Taliban ordered the stoning of a couple who defied local conventions, had an affair and tried to elope.
In some parts of Logar province, south of Kabul, Taliban insurgents have warned residents not to watch television.
And in Jalalabad, roving enforcers have started targeting music stores in Afghanistan's largest eastern city.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/03/100136/taliban-tries-to-stop-the-music.html
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