The commander, Colonel Aref al-Zaben, was a resourceful leader who brought fresh ideas to bear. He deployed his men on frequent patrols, and his interpreters kept him updated on the Taliban’s hateful messages going out over the airways to isolated communities in the mountain valleys. Using his own Muslim clerics, he began a daily radio barrage contradicting the fundamentalists’ misinterpretation of the Koran. The program was titled “Voices of Moderate Islam.” His troops distributed small radios to the families, and his clerics took to the air, challenging the Taliban’s ideology in a manner
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