The no of Mazar-i Sharif, the city that rejects the hard Taliban fist

MAZAR-I SHARIF – In the heat of the afternoon, the banners of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan hang like dirty sheets from the domes and spiers of the blue mosque. The air is still and incandescent, and in the great sanctuary of the fourth caliph, his Excellency Ali, there is not a living soul. Since last August 13, the date of the bloody Taliban conquest of Mazar-i Sharif, no one has been walking barefoot on the smooth white marble slabs that surround every building and minaret.