News at Eleven: What is interesting is that the Taliban's official face

and past practice has been so fiercely anti-Sufi, anti-historical, and seemingly anti-culture. This book provides an entirely different outlook. Indeed, in their rich memory of 19th-century British invasions, of Afghan folklore and Islamic heroism, the Taliban poets seem more awake to history than we are.

As well as raillery and satire against the foreign enemy and its local servants, there is self-criticism aplenty. "Humanity has been forgotten by us," writes one poet. "And I don't know when it will come back."

from The Guardian: Taliban poetry: the gentle, flowery side of the story?
then The Independent: Controversial Taliban poetry anthology to be published
then The New York Times: The Poetry of Al Qaeda and the Taliban

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