Alexander’s armies ground to a halt in nearby Nuristan and stayed so long that the blond and red-haired locals are said to be descendants of his men. The Soviet army lost entire companies—200 men at a time—to ambushes along the Kunar River. (“They sent two divisions through here and left with a battalion through the Pech River Valley,” The Rock’s commander told me when I first arrived. “At least that’s what the locals say.”) The Americans didn’t enter the area until 2003 and maintained no sizable presence there for another two or three years. There were rumors that 9/11 had been planned, in
...more
