Taliban’s new victims

PASHTUNABAD — a poor, wind and flyblown suburb of Quetta — is the type of Pakistani town where commanders in the Afghan Taliban lived after being kicked out of their country in 2001.

Modest cement-block and mud-brick, one and two-storey homes sit cheek by jowl along narrow, unpaved streets and open sewers. Graffiti such as “Long Live Mullah Omar” and “Long Live the Jihad” are scrawled on walls; the flag of a pro-Taliban political party flies over many homes.

Living in towns such as Pashtunabad had advantages for the Afghan Taliban’s leadership: It allowed them to fly under the radar and cultivate an image as average Joes, even as they were directing an insurgency against US troops across the border.