Kabul : Commander Supranullah was busy as we were ushered out of the monsoon rain for shelter on his front porch.
The porch doubles as office and bedroom, which is convenient because since becoming the Taliban’s point person sorting problems and authorizing visiting journalists at the border with Pakistan, Supranullah — who like many rural Afghans uses just one name — has been slammed. He has a three-mile back up of heavily laden trucks waiting to leave Afghanistan at the Torkham border crossing.
When we entered into his world, he was scribbling details relayed by an armed underling into a notebook. Clad in camouflage fatigues, the commander was barefoot despite the rain, working at a low table and sitting on his kot, the traditional daybed.
“Who do you know in Kabul?” he asked. “Zabihullah Mujahid,” we replied, naming the Taliban spokesman. A young, gun-toting Taliban member quipped, “That’s the right answer.”
And so began our surreal, and at some moments fear-inducing odyssey from Pakistan’s Khyber Pass to Kabul.
