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southernmost five miles are in Konar Province. The provincial boundarywhich also marks the ethnic boundary between Nuristanis to the northand Safi Pashtuns to the south is located one half mile south of Wanat. Allof the valleys of Nuristan and Konar, to include the Waygal Valley, arerocky, deep, narrow, and steep-sided, most of them are classic examplesof geological V-shaped valleys. One international observer simply stated,“The terrain is mountainous indeed. This is one of the most topographicallyforbidding operating environments in the world.”3 Nine Nuristani villagesare located in the northern and central Waygal Valley.4While located on the Indian border, during its era of rule in India,the British colonial government rarely became involved with Konar andNuristan, although the British played a role in the appointment of the Amirof Pashat, the ruler of the eastern Konar region in the 1840s. IndividualEnglish explorers sometimes penetrated into the area. One such expeditioninto eastern Nuristan (then called Kafiristan) became the basis for RudyardKipling’s 1888 short story The Man Who Would Be King. In 1896, afterthe demarcation of the Durand Line solidified the political borders of hisrealm, the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan moved into Kafiristan andsubdued the population. As a price for his future protection, he required theKafiristanis to accept Islam and rechristened them Nuristanis, as they hadseen the light of Islam, nur being the Arabic word for light. This was partof the process by which Abdur Rahman, a grandson of renowned Afghanleader Dost Muhammad, who ruled in Kabul for 21 years, introduced astable central government to Afghanistan for the first time in its history.5The next great external intervention in the northeast of Afghanistanoccurred in December of 1979 when the Soviet Union sent troops toAfghanistan to rescue and buttress a weak Marxist government thathad assumed power the previous year in Kabul. Even before the Sovietintervention, Konar had been the scene of several early rebellions againstthe Marxist forces. After two successful early offensives along the PechValley in the spring of 1980, the Soviets restricted their operations inKonar and eastern Nuristan to the placing of garrisons along the KonarRiver at major population centers. Soviet successes and brutality in thePech and Waygal region were such that many mujahedeen families andmost of the leadership fled to Pakistan, not to return until the later yearsof the Soviet war. With that area pacified, most significant heavy fightingwas centered along the corridor of the Konar River connecting Jalalabadto Asadabad and Barikowt on the Pakistani border. The Soviets focused onrestricting the flow of anti Soviet insurgents and their arms and suppliesfrom Pakistan into Afghanistan through the Konar Valley. The mujahedeen2

returned to the Pech-Waygal valleys in the mid 1980s. The Soviets andAfghan Marxists executed a brief campaign in the Pech Valley that evenpenetrated to the Waygal Valley. During this period, Nuristan and Konarsaw other fighting between Communist proxies, local landowners andcommunities, and organized criminal organizations attempting to gaincontrol of the lucrative Kamdesh timber and gemstone interests within theregion.6During the civil war in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawaland the ensuing Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban maintainedonly a token presence in the Pech and Waygal Valleys. Nuristan’s remotelocation, its rugged, severely constrained terrain, limited road network,and proximity to the Northern Alliance power center in the Panjshir Valleymade a large presence unpalatable to the Taliban. The Nuristanis were alsoable to play the Taliban off against the Northern Alliance. Neither sideattempted to lay a heavy hand on the region out of fear of driving the localpopulation into the arms of its enemies.Central government influence within the Waygal Valley has historicallybeen limited although this has recently been changing. Similar to otherremote areas, there was no permanent governmental administrativepresence in the Waygal Valley until the post Soviet era (1993) when aseparate Nuristan Province was established and the Waygal Valley becamedesignated as a district within that province. Eventually a district centerwas established at Wanat which had been a traditional meeting place forthe Waygal Valley Nuristanis and the rough road linking the Pech Valleyto Wanat was improved sufficiently to allow motor vehicles to reach theadministrative center for the first time.7As previously mentioned, two ethnic population groups arepredominant in the Waygal Valley: the Nuristanis in the north and SafiPashtuns in the south. Because of the rugged terrain and steep ridgelinesthroughout northeastern Afghanistan, the majority of the communities areisolated and relationships between and within the various ethnic groupsare extremely complex. The Safi Pashtuns and Nuristanis speak distinctivelanguages and there are particular dialects within these languages. TheNuristanis especially have a large number of dialects, some of whichare so divergent as to constitute separate languages. For centuries, theNuristanis practiced their own polytheistic religion in a region otherwisedominated by followers of Islam. As previously mentioned, this culturaldistinctiveness changed only in the late nineteenth century when Nuristanfinally embraced Islam at the forcible demand of the Afghan ruler AbdurRahman. Nuristan was only established as an independent province in3

1993 when it was created from the northern parts of Konar and Laghmanprovinces.8The Nuristani people in the Waygal Valley differentiate themselvesfrom other Nuristanis by referring to themselves as Kalasha. Althoughthe Kalasha speak their own distinctive language, the people of the foursouthernmost villages further identify themselves as Chimi-nishey, whilethe dwellers of the northern villages call themselves Wai. The Nuristanipopulation of the Waygal Valley also differentiates itself between Amurshkara and Kila-kara. This refers to the type of cheese they make. This is notthe minor point that it appears. The type of cheese produced significantlyinfluences how a family organizes its pastoral and dairy activities andthis, in turn, reflects the differences between the amount and quality ofsummer pastures that the people of the northern half of the valley possesscompared to the southern half of the valley. Such complicated distinctionsvalidate the convoluted human terrain of the region. It must be noted thateven within the same ethnic group, tensions of various types and severityabound between adjacent villages, the majority of whose families areoften related. As Sami Nuristani, a resident of the Waygal Valley who iscurrently a college student in the United States noted, “Be prepared to hearcontradicting requests. Also, be open to see some sort of rivalry betweenthe inhabitants of different villages in the valley. You might hear one thingfrom one village and may hear completely the opposite from anothervillage. It has been there as long as Nuristan existed.”9Historically, the small population of Nuristan has depended on theisolation of their compact settlements for military defense. Vast tractsof trackless mountainous terrain surround their villages. These tractsserved as effective buffer zones for their communities and could onlybe exploited by well armed herders who could take their animals thereunder protection. The Nuristanis controlled the highlands along with theattendant forests, pastures, gem-rich mountains, and water for irrigationthat can turn a semi arid land into valuable agricultural fields. After AbdurRahman imposed peace on the region, the Nuristani population gingerlymoved into these buffer areas on the periphery of their settlements.They constructed irrigation systems and agricultural terraces and builtrudimentary shelters to use while tending their fields. Given populationgrowth and sustained security, over time these rudimentary shelters weregradually improved and became permanent hamlets. To the south, theSafi Pashtuns had expanded across the lowlands of the Pech and KonarValleys in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at the expense of theprevious Dardic speaking inhabitants. The Safis were unable to expand4

their agriculturally based livelihood into the highland areas adjacent toNuristani settlements. Accordingly, the lower Waygal Valley becamea buffer zone between the Safis and the Nuristanis that saw periods ofboth cooperation and confrontation. In the early twentieth century whenthe central Afghan Government unilaterally settled a group of nonSafi Pashtuns from the eastern frontier area of Konar onto traditionallyNuristani land on the west side of the Waygal Valley, the Safi Pashtunsand the Kalasha Nuristanis cooperated to eject the newcomers. The arearemains Nuristani to the present day. In 1945-1946 when the Pech SafiPashtuns revolted against the Afghan Government, the central governmentsuccessfully played the Nuristanis off against the Safis. However, in thejihad against the Marxists and Soviets, both groups cooperated successfully.Nevertheless considerable animosity exists within the valley and localizedstruggles both between the two ethnic groups and among several Nuristanicommunities are common today.10In Nuristan, the largest unit that has significance is what anthropologistsrefer to as the corporate community, a process in which a closelyinterrelated geographic community with common economic interestsshares in management and decision-making for the use and disposition ofscarce and valuable natural resources. Waygal Village, for example, thenorthernmost and largest population concentration in the valley, actuallyis comprised of two different corporate communities, Beremdesh andWaremdesh. Conflicts, usually over resources such as pasture, forests, orwater, were frequent between and within the corporate communities of theWaygal Valley and elsewhere in Nuristan. The potential for such conflictsbetween these distinct corporate communities was one reason why theNuristanis had an extremely strong exogamy rule. French AnthropologistClaude Lévi-Strauss developed the “Alliance Theory” of exogamy, thepractice of marrying outside a local entity such as a family, clan, tribe, orcommunity to build alliances with other groups. According to Lévi-Strauss’theory, such practices result in enhanced opportunities for cultural andeconomic exchanges and unite diverse organizations that would otherwiseengage in conflicts (either military or economic). Nuristani communityleaders recognized the need to create at least some bonds between othercommunities to have social and cultural links to resolve conflicts that mightarise, to engage in trade between craftsmen who specialized in productsin different communities, and to call on one another for mutual assistancewhen necessary. Within Nuristan, efforts to act in unity above the level ofthe corporate community have proven to be difficult and fragile. Some ofthe current conflict in the region can be traced to the recent dissipation ofsolidarity within the corporate communities.115

In general terms, Nuristani ethnic groups live in homes traditionallyconstructed into the sides of mountains to conserve limited arable land.The homes are constructed with wooden supports and bracketed in sucha manner that they are generally resistant to the frequent earthquakesthat plague the region. Families tend to use their first floor for storageand reside on the second floor. Walkways, terraces, and ladders connectfamilies and neighborhoods. Access to the ground or first floor is usuallyrestricted and the ladders that connect residences can be readily removed toenhance security. Structures tend to be clustered or concentrated, literallystacked atop each other, with an extended family living with other suchfamilies within a tightly knit community. The Nuristanis’ practice whatanthropologists refer to as mixed mountain agriculture, where their pastoralactivities are a key element that is integrated with their crop cultivation.Essentially, the Nuristanis are subsistence farmers of agricultural landconstructed as terraces cut into the hillsides that dominate the region,while livestock is raised on slopes that are too steep to be converted tofarmland.12The Safi Pashtuns of the Pech Valley typically reside in compounds.These compounds are enclosed by sturdy walls, sun dried over decades toassume the consistency and strength of concrete and with firing platformsand observation towers incorporated into their design. Each compoundhouses an extended family. Because the lowland Safi Pashtuns do not haveaccess to the summer pastures of the highlands, they could not maintaineconomically viable herds of goats or sheep. As a result, the Safi Pashtuns’economy is centered on agricultural cultivation, and the location andmaintenance of irrigation canals are extremely important.Ironically, while Nuristanis generally live in mountainside villagessuch as Kamdesh and Aranas and Safi Pashtuns live in fortified settlements,in the case of Wanat the opposite is the case. Wanat is located on relativelylow land at the junction of two streams and is surrounded by numerousfortified compounds. Meanwhile, the nearest sizeable Safi Pashtun townof Nangalam outside of Camp Blessing, was built on a hillside in a patternsimilar to that of Kamdesh and Aranas. This juxtaposition seems to reflectgeographical considerations rather than cultural ones in the building stylesof settlements.Nuristan is heavily forested with considerable timber of commercialvalue. Gem mining is now also a major source of commercial prosperitywithin both provinces. Criminal cartels control both industries and havefrequently exploited these resources to garner individual wealth. Thepeople of Konar and Nuristan have derived little benefit from either6

product. Within recent years, Konar and Nuristan provinces have seen theintroduction of opium poppies as a financially lucrative crop.13Both the Safi Pashtuns and Nuristanis have reputations as warriors. Onestudy noted, “Feuds are an important part of [the] culture and many culturalvalues are reflected in the feud. For example, masculinity and honor arestrong values and provide themes for many stories and songs. Men striveto be fierce warriors who are loyal to their kin, dangerous to their enemies,and ready to fight whenever necessary.”14 However, other anthropologistsassert that this reputation is exaggerated and reflects a misinterpretationof the recognition that those who successfully defend their families andcommunities are afforded. Communities have a tradition of being entirelyautonomous and independent, based on the isolation of individual valleysimposed by the rugged terrain. Controversies have traditionally beenresolved by the intervention of elders from the corporate community.Individual leaders who can peacefully resolve the inevitable conflicts thatarise over access to and the use of constrained resources are considerablyrespected within their communities. Still, given the poor and unsettledsecurity situation of recent decades, it is uncommon for a household notto have access to weapons for self defense. Although an overly simplisticgeneralization, it remains valid that Afghan traditional cultures, such asthose found in Nuristan, accept the simple physical premise of rule by thestrongest, either through rule of force, skill of negotiations, or fulfillmentof economic advantages. One anthropological study summarized theParun Valley as a subsidiary of the Pech River located to the north of theWaygal Valley, “The Parun Valley offers the picture of an encapsulatedKafir culture enclosed by high mountains an

Regiment, endured four hours of intense close quarters combat and mounting casualties. The contingent of 49 United States and 24 Afghan National Army Soldiers valiantly defended their small outpost against a coordinated attack by a determined insurgent force armed with rocket propelled gren