In 2001, I spent part of a hard winter in a remote village near Bamiyan in the Afghan central highlands. The Taliban government had just fallen. The village was ringed with landmines. Neighbouring village had been razed to the ground by retreating militia, the roof-beams were charred, the buildings empty, and the survivors had fled to refugee camps in Iran.
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Rory Stewart was the UK Secretary of State for International Development. He walked across Afghanistan in the Winter of 2001/2002, established and ran the non-profit, Turquoise Mountain in Kabul, and now teaches at Yale University
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