Police Captain

Farah Nosh

Getty Images / TIME Magazine / The New York Times

Holding her Smith & Wesson pistol, Police Captain Jammilla Bargzai, left, says the Taliban uses night letters as a weapon of intimidation. For Mohammed Qasim, right, they are terrifying enough to persuade him to quit his job as janitor at Bargzai's Kandahar station. For the Taliban, the night letters are a cost-effective way to exploit such anxieties. 'They don't have weapons to come to town to fight,' says Captain Bargzai, head of the Kandahar police department's crime-investigation unit. 'Their only weapon is to scare people.'

Farah Nosh, "Police Captain ," in POYi Archive, Item #46155, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/46155 (accessed April 25, 2024).