Everything changed when my father was ten. Just after Christmas 1979 the Russians invaded our neighbor Afghanistan. Millions of Afghans fled across the border and General Zia gave them refuge. Vast camps of white tents sprang up mostly around Peshawar, some of which are still there today. Our biggest intelligence service belongs to the military and is called the ISI. It started a massive program to train Afghan refugees recruited from the camps as resistance fighters, or mujahideen.
