Veteran journalist Fakhar Rehman reports from Pakistan's tribal areas. He believes many people in his homeland saw the U.S. reaction to 9/11 as an attack on Islam.

By Fakhar Rehman, NBC News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When I turned on my television at home on September 11, 2001, I was stunned to see passenger planes hitting symbols of America's financial and military strength.

My journalistic instincts kicked in and I contacted Sohail Shaheen, the Taliban Embassy spokesman in Islamabad. "Are you watching TV?" I asked him. His reply was, "No." I explained the breaking news that was unfolding on-air. He denied the Taliban were involved. I told him to get ready — the whole world would soon be focusing on Afghanistan. At the time, I did not realize that the focus would eventually turn to my own country of Pakistan.

Thousands pay respects to 9/11 victims

Covering the "War on Terror" as a Pakistani journalist over the last decade, I've found myself in many unexpected situations. One week after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, I received a call from the Taliban to pick up my visa from their Embassy in Islamabad. Once there, I was told they were taking me to Jalalabad — immediately. I called my family, got on the bus with the Taliban and spent the next three days wearing the same clothes while interviewing Taliban members and reporting from Afghanistan. Thank God, I returned home safely.

As a Muslim, the 9/11 attacks pushed me to probe my own religion and try to offer assessments in the debate on Islam and extremism. I've always believed that no religion supports killing. Extremism has nothing to do with any religion; it's a reaction, an outburst of feelings for a person who passes through certain difficulties and sees no other way. But, like many Pakistanis and others around the world, I did consider the U.S. action after 9/11 to be too big. President George W. Bush's decision to call it a "crusade" led to a great divide in the Muslim world. The evil men who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks could then be called "warriors" in this "crusade," and not "criminals," as they should have been. People here saw the U.S. reaction as an attack on Islam.

Islamists protest in Pakistan on 9/11 anniversary

Over the last 10 years, I've watched Pakistan became a divided nation. Everyone now has to define himself by where he falls on the line of extremist, liberal, or moderate. The country now looks like a war zone, with checkpoints and security barriers in all the main cities. Suicide attacks were an unknown phenomenon here — the first in years was the assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. Now they happen all the time.

Thousands of people have been killed here, children have been orphaned and entire families have been uprooted — insecurity has become the dominant feeling in the last 10 years. No-go zones, checkpoints, anti-terror courts — these are all everyday things in Pakistanis' lives. They never were before 9/11.

'This will be a long war'
There has been a loss of personal freedom. Never ever before were journalists regarded with suspicion but now I am regularly searched. My right to move and report freely has been curtailed but I see this profession as a way to continue fighting for those rights for all.

The U.S. was right to punish the 9/11 perpetrators but it laid the wrong foundation for its "crusade." As a result, Pakistani society has become more segmented, pushing Islamist and liberal political parties further apart. The Pakistan Army has to fight terrorists while trying to convince the masses it's not fighting a war against Islamists.

'American response was more deadly than 9/11' 

Ten years ago I met a Taliban fighter on that trip to Jalalabad and I asked him how they would face a war against America. "Our fighters have already moved into the mountains," he said. "This will be a long war and we are ready."

The fight is still on. But despite the changes I've seen in my own country, I still believe Pakistan will emerge a strong and stable nation.

As the U.S. marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Iraqis reflect on what the attacks meant for them.

"This incident was the end of peace in the Middle East. Not only in Iraq, war started and all of our lives have been changed," said Lana Shaikhly, a 21-year-old law student in Baghdad.

"They used the events of Sept. 11 as an excuse to enter Iraq. It's one of the reasons."

For Haydar Al-Rubaie, a shopkeepr in Baghdad, Iraq really got the brunt of the attacks. "The attacks hurt innocent people and at the end of the day, we are paying the price for it. We were not guilty of the attacks, but we are paying the price for it."

Click on the video above to hear more Iraqi voices on the attacks of 9/11.

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Ten years since the shattering events of 9/11 changed the world, many Palestinians remain focused on what is unchanged: their dream of a sovereign state alongside Israel is still just a dream.

Many believe the last decade was actually a huge setback for their cause – especially because of America's subsequent war on terror.

“I think 9/11 was a turning point for Muslims and Arabs all over the world,” said Palestinian journalist Malak Hasan. “Since then the West is more compassionate with the Israelis than with the Palestinians. They think that we are only terrorists and deserve what is happening to us.”

Many here say that sense of prejudice has built barriers between the Arab and Western world and has created suspicions and misconceptions on both sides.

Shadi Issa holds both U.S. and Palestinian passports, but said he still has difficulty traveling. 

“It's very bad. We cannot travel freely,” he said. “When I travel anywhere in the world I feel that people are looking at me. They ask me questions like, ‘Where are you from? Why are you here?’ Even if I'm going on vacation,” Issa added.

Nahed Freij is a business consultant and another frequent traveler. When asked if she gets the same treatment and how she feels about it, she replied matter of factly: “It’s discrimination.”

Still ten years on, there is no lack of compassion for those who died on 9/11. “We were all victims, because when people die, everyone is a victim,” said Rasha Sansur, among the crowds shopping in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

But ask around and you're also likely to hear Palestinians give credence to the many conspiracy theories that surround 9/11.

“The Mossad knew about it and the CIA knew about it. There were 3,000 Jews in the building who didn't go to work that day, it was not a random thing. Someone told them,'' Ashraf Abu Iram was quick to say during a conversation in the middle of a busy street in
Ramallah.

Still, Palestinians this month are focused on New York, not as much on the commemorations for 9/11 as to events a few blocks away.
At the United Nations headquarters on Sept. 20, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to ask the General Assembly to recognize an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. 

“Lately we are focusing on our state, we are thinking about the vote in the U.N., it is the most important thing for us now,” said 23-year-old Sama Anfus.

But the fact that the United States has vowed to veto the move only confirms in most Palestinian minds that the legacy of 9/11 in this part of the Middle East is one of division and discord.  

TEL AVIV – Ten years ago Americans woke up to a new reality and discovered that terror can hit within.

Here in Israel that same reality is a way of life. People here grow up living and hearing about bomb explosions, suicide bombers and terrorists trying to infiltrate the country.

It was just about three weeks ago that terrorists crossed the Egyptian border with Israel near the vacation town of Eilat. They killed eight Israeli civilians, including a couple who were driving their car and were shot at close range. A small al-Qaida- linked group based in Gaza praised the attack saying the attack sends a message against “the enemies of God.”

It's this reality that caused lots of Israelis to be very happy when they heard that the U.S. killed Bin Laden.

Hai Shaulian is a 44-year-old Israeli who works in real estate. “I feel now that the world is a safer place for my children. The U.S has woken up against the bad people out there.”

When you speak with people on the streets of Tel Aviv, it’s clear that they have become accustomed to living with the constant threat of attack. 

“Here in Israel we had a lot of terror before 9/11, so we have experience with it,” said Adiv Cohen, a 28-year-old architect. “People in the world can now understand what we go through and feel.”

Tomer Helsgoff, a 29-year-old graphic designer, believes that the attack made people more aware of potential danger.

“I think that now people around the world are much more afraid and suspicious. For me as an ex-Israeli soldier we feel the danger in the air,” said Helsgoff. He added that people always need to be cautious of their surroundings. “You need to always be ready that something will go off, that something will happen. You live under terror all your life.” 

Yael Yosefi, is an 18-year-old who will be joining the Israeli Army soon. For him, the attacks are a constant reminder that the world is full of dangers. “People realize now that the world is a frightening place, I’m scared to be on buses and on the street.”

But in a strange way, the 9/11 attack seemed to strengthen even further the bond between Israelis and Americans.

“We feel very connected with America, we think that anything that happens in the U.S has an effect on us and vice versa,” said Yosefi.

“I think America showed the world that there are still rules. If you strike us we strike harder and that is what Israel tries to do,” said Helsgoff.

NBC’s Jim Maceda has worked as an embedded journalist with U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines dozens of times in Afghanistan over the  last 10 years. That close contact with service members led to his series "Far from Home," on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

The following story about John Nicholson stands above the rest for Maceda. For him, Nicholson has become not only a friend, but a bellwether for the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.

By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent

I first met John Nicholson, a lanky 50-something Ranger and paratrooper, when he was a colonel and about to command the largest U.S. Army air assault since Vietnam.  The operation was called Mountain Lion. The objective was to clear out the Taliban from the Korengal Valley, a key infiltration route for Taliban insurgents crossing into Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan. To do this, he would have five battalions, a massive nighttime helicopter insert and some element of surprise.

When I asked Nicholson how he intended to rid the valley of the Taliban, his answer reflected the swagger of a commander in his first battle in Afghanistan.

“We’re going to kill or capture every single one of them,” he replied flatly.  That was April, 2006. 

After many battles, dozens of losses and hundreds of wounded, the same John Nicholson, now a major general in his third Afghan deployment, said something different about winning the war. “You can kill, capture or force an enemy to flee, but the best way is to get him over to your side,” he said last January.

By 2011, the kinetic bluster of 2006 had morphed into talk of soft power and reconciliation. His shift in tactics reflects the changing war from a conventional air and ground battle, to a counter-terrorism policing operation and then to a full-blown counterinsurgency.

Along the way, Nicholson has ticked-off a number of military firsts.  He led the first U.S. brigade in eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan. He was the first U.S. general to be based in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban’s heartland. And he helped set up the first series of tiny U.S. outposts, so-called bullet magnets, along insurgent lines near Pakistan that later took names like Restrepo. 

John, or Mick as his friends call him, never lost his commitment.

“We’re not only protecting our homeland and our way of life,” he reflected back in December 2008. “We’re also in a struggle for the future of the Islamic population of the world.  Whether they embrace a moderate or radical form of Islam will be important to my  country, important to my children and worthy of our efforts.”

A man with a calling
There are reasons why Nicholson sounds like a man who’s found his calling. His Scottish namesake and distant relative, John Nicholson, put down rebellions in India for queen and country more than 150 years ago.

And fate has certainly played an active role in making Nicholson a modern-day warrior: On 9/11, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into his office and killed many of his closest colleagues as it ripped through the Pentagon’s rings.  But Nicholson wasn’t there that day; instead he was moving into a house with his family after a last-minute change of plans.

“And that’s why I’m sitting here today,” he told me sitting outside his headquarters at Kandahar Air Field in late 2009.

Devout, but no Christian soldier, Nicholson doesn't wear his religion like he does his stars. But he does see a higher purpose. 

“I have no doubt this was the will of God looking out for me. He wanted me to serve my country, here in Afghanistan, doing what I do. I’m grateful to have that purpose,” he said in the mountains of Kunar province in the spring of 2006.  Since then, few Americans have served longer, or harder, in Afghanistan. Few know more about the country or how difficult it is to succeed there.

When asked, the three pillars of counter-insurgency roll off Nicholson’s tongue: “First, we separate the enemy from the people; second, we connect the government, and improvements, with the people; thirdly, the people will support their government and reject the enemy.”

He's become more nuanced in the intervening years, especially when it comes to connecting Afghans with good, honest and representative government.  Nicholson’s learned the hard way – he had to deal with a series of Taliban assassinations of Afghan friends and government officials, as well as deeply corrupt presidential elections. 

“Improvements in governance are tough,’’ he admitted last year. “They’re very subjective and it’s hard to get results.”

For a major general who now spends nearly every waking hour plotting the U.S. mission in Afghanistan through 2014, Nicholson lives a spartan existence: two light meals a day, an hour at the gym, four to five hours of sleep and no frills “hooch” at NATO’s headquarters in Kabul he calls home.

Prized possessions
Two of his most prized possessions are always nearby: a battle-scarred Bible he got as a “plebe” at West Point in 1975 and a photo of his two children.  Caroline just graduated from Princeton and John III is a high school junior. Nicholson prefers to talk about their sacrifice,  not his.

“It’s a unique hardship for them,” he said in December 2009, referring to his multiple deployments to a remote and dangerous  place. “They don’t have many friends in the same situation.  But they both understand and support what I’m doing, which doesn’t make it any less difficult.’’

Even more challenging, Nicholson and his wife of 24 years split up after his last deployment. He says the pressures of long – and scary – absences were just too much for the marriage to bear.

I’ve asked Nicholson many times why he keeps going back. “Who else is gonna do it?” he always answers.

But if you push this military professional, you realize it has everything to do with the 41 killed and 350 wounded under his first command back in 2006. “I have a moral obligation to my soldiers who’ve sacrificed so much here to come back and deliver on what they’ve done,” he said almost four years later. 

And despite the drawdown, and the political and the economic pressures back home to end the war, Nicholson still deeply believes the war can be won. “If victory means preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terror, then we are winning. The Afghan security forces are winning. And the Afghan people are winning,” he likes to say.

True, it may be the words and wishes of an eternal optimist. But, if anything, Nicholson is brutally honest. And unless he and other war planners conclude that “we're” losing, it's unlikely we'll see any radical change in the U.S. effort in Afghanistan any time soon.

Click to see the videos in Jim Maceda's series: "Far From Home: The War in Afghanistan"

In the hours and days after the attacks of 9/11, the United States grappled with the question: who was responsible? By Oct.7, 2001, American and British forces had teamed up with the Northern Alliance and invaded Afghanistan with the goal of dismantling the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the attacks and destroying their safe haven in the Taliban-controlled country. 

The international press was there and soon journalists from all over the world were climbing through unfamiliar terrain in Afghanistan. Steve O’Neill, a veteran NBC News cameraman, was part of NBC’s team on the ground. He recounts the heady days right after the attacks and the struggle to cover the news in Afghanistan.     

By Steve O’Neill, NBC News cameraman

“What have you had to eat today?” said Babak Benham. “Six Imodium and a biscuit,” I replied, wincing with Montezuma’s Revenge.  Babak creased up with laughter, became speechless and couldn’t continue filming me.

We were high up in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush, headed south for the pass that led into the Panshir Valley, which in turn opens up just 50 miles north of Kabul. 

Conscious of the need to document our journey into the unknown, our producer, Babak said we’d better start filming. Unable to use the hardtop road south, which was controlled by the Taliban, we were using a tortuous rubble and rock-strewn route through this massive mountain range.

Some 30 or so Toyota HiLux 4-wheel drive pickups and their drivers were assembled by the Northern Alliance, who had fought themselves to a stalemate against the Taliban around 25 miles north of the Afghan capital Kabul. We were among representatives of the world’s press who had volunteered to get in from Tajikistan and head south.

So south we went for as far as we could go for four gruelling days.

We had two vehicles of uncertain age and reliability.  NBC sound man/ engineer Rob Grant complained bitterly about the broken seat spring that was stabbing him in the back. I tried to cut the spring with my Leatherman knife but failed. Climbing steeply and scrabbling over the rocks, the Toyota’s engine was always overheated.  So we stopped every time we saw a stream, which was often, pouring water over and in the radiator and cursing the scalding steam.

Life was hell in the car with cart-horse suspension. Rob squealed with pain, my bulky camera flew into the air and I tried to stop the lens being impaled on the bits of jagged metal around my seat.  The route was so bad that local Afghans on donkeys regularly outpaced us. They stared at us as though we were Martians – I guess we were as far as they were concerned.  I remember wishing I was either walking or sitting on a donkey, instead wedged inside the infernal Toyota. (Watch the video embedded above to see footage of the journey).

Producer Babak was a big and unusual man of many talents. He was ethnically Iranian, but raised in the States. He’d bought himself an Afghan hat, and combined with the ability to grow a huge beard seemingly in a matter of hours and his discovery that the local language Dari was very close to his fluent Farsi, led him to assume command of the convoy. He could be seen admonishing drivers and cut a magnificent figure: resplendent with a huge girth and an unforgiving temper.

One night convoy humor snapped.  Other members of the press had presumed Babak was from the Northern Alliance – the anti-Taliban, pro-American forces that controlled some of the north of the country, including the Panshir Valley we were traveling through.

We had stopped in a town to sleep overnight.  We had bad vibes and were worried about theft or worse, mainly because our equipment was sitting exposed on the back of the pickups.  Babak went off and negotiated to rent a house for the night.

Mayhem ensued when the other members of the press saw us driving towards our rented house.  They drove past us at breakneck speed and crammed into the mud-walled building.  We drove into the compound and some French TV guys used sharp elbows to get past us, muttering darkly under their breaths.

“What’s wrong?” I said.  They answered that they knew we were paying off the Northern Alliance commander (Babak) and it was unfair we were getting all the privileges, including this house.  I said he was our producer – he just happens to look the part. 

The French journalists were deeply apologetic.  But by this time there was not a square inch of floor-space left.  Only the stables remained. The floor was covered in hay and poo, and it stank of urine. We looked miserably at French TV and they looked miserably at us, and we all nodded in unspoken agreement. We grabbed what passed for tools and cleaned the barn out as best we could. Despite the stench and snoring, we all slept like babies.

Early days
A few weeks before, I’d walked into my London office. Many faces looked up in dismay at the banks of monitors showing one of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on fire.  Then I saw the airliner crash into the second building.  I didn’t wait to be told: I rushed to my home, picked up a bunch of clothes, sleeping bag, mosquito net, head-torch and the vital Imodium, then sped back to the office and got my equipment ready.

Within an hour the word came from on high and I set off to Islamabad, Pakistan. My old pal, NBC correspondent Tom Aspell, arrived.  Seemingly hundreds of journalists followed until the hotels were full to overflowing.

“We’d better get out of Pakistan and get into Afghanistan,” I said to Tom after a few days.  Neither of us was big on crowds.   

In the relative safety of the Panshir Valley, we parted company with our “friends” from the rest of the press. Making our way towards our intended base in Jabal Saraj some 30 miles north of Kabul, we entered a small village at the southern mouth of the valley.

I’d noticed that Tom and Babak’s car in front of us was crabbing sideways a bit. They went round a bend, disappeared and became engulfed in a crowd of about a hundred Afghans. 

I got my camera out, turned it onto record and punched through the throng. Babak’s face came into view; he pointed at Tom sitting next to him. I aimed the camera at Tom who said with a wry smile: “The axle fell off the car.”

To anyone who knows anything about cars, that’s a serious problem. Well, anywhere in the West it is! Within half an hour, 10 men had lifted the car up, and in a shower of sparks, with no protective eye-wear, the village welder fixed the axle back on.

As we prepared to leave the village, Babak let out a mortal scream. “What’s wrong,” I shouted!

“Some m********r has stolen the last case of water!” he yelled.

He was inconsolable. I said the water would have only lasted a couple of days at most. So was it worth getting upset about? It made no difference, the deed had been done.  Murder was on Babak’s mind!

Home base: mud house in Jabal Sarag 
“Sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one.”  

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m counting drops of iodine to purify this river water the driver just fetched,” Babak said. From then on, this was to be our source of drinking water. He looked very unhappy, sitting in our Jabal Sarag mud house compound where we established a base for about six weeks until the Taliban were ousted from Kabul.

Things were looking up. We’d finally managed to get the giant unhappy hornets out of our bedroom. We’d established that if you shouted, “Hot Dog” a young lad would come about half an hour later with a rusty bucket of hot water, perfect for pouring mugs of water over yourself in the absence of a shower. We had running cold water: a channel dug from the filthy ditch outside the mud house, which diverted some of the dirty water into the compound.  “Hot Dog” boy could be seen “cleaning” cutlery and plates in it.

We bought some fresh meat from the local market. Our new cook hung it up in the pantry, which shared a wall and an open window with the latrine, or long drop.  The flies couldn’t get to the meat because it was covered in a layer of vicious-looking wasps.  Both larder and long drop was really a two-roomed cafe for a large percentage of the country’s flies. Hygiene obviously hadn’t been on the builder’s mind!

It was October 2001 and winter was beginning to set in. Soon the Panshir Valley would be blocked off by snow in the northern pass, and we would be cut off from the rest of the world by the same thing, as well as the Taliban in the south.

We asked if some essential supplies could be sent in. The list grew and grew. Eventually a Polish cameraman, Kris Burzynski volunteered to bring it all in from Tajikistan.

“Welcome,” I said when he arrived. “We are so happy to see you!” He explained he had to abandon the vehicles on the other side of the pass and negotiated around 20 horses with guides to move the supplies and equipment through the deep snow.

“Surely you didn’t cross over on horseback with those thin clothes and trainers?” I said to him.

“I’m a Pole,” Kris answered, fingering a handlebar moustache.  Clearly 15,000 feet and sub-zero temperatures in the Hindu Kush were nothing for a son of Poland!

After the United States Air Force had “softened up” Taliban positions and equipment, the Northern Alliance promised they would make a push for Kabul. The appointed time came and went several times.  A B-52 dropped one huge bomb about 400 yards from our position and I was beginning to worry a mistake might happen.

“Let’s leave the front line – the push is not going to happen today,” Tom finally said.

The next morning I woke up at 5a.m., switched on the BBC World Service and heard legendary British correspondent John Simpson say he was “liberating” Kabul.  An hour later, we abandoned our mud house and drove south at breakneck speed through the Northern Alliance lines for Kabul in our two pickups loaded with gear.  We passed Simpson who was still walking south on the outskirts of the city.

We arrived at Kabul’s Hotel Inter-Continental, broke out the satellite dish and within 15 minutes or so Tom was going live from parking lot.

We were the first newsmen to arrive at the hotel and I reckon we were the first to go live from Kabul. 

A small boy sat nearby throwing stones at us. An old man with a very long Taliban approved beard turned up and stood patiently nearby. I said good morning, just to be polite and not expecting a coherent reply. He answered in a rich Texan accent with an amazingly big but old-fashioned vocabulary. We immediately secured Mr. Hadari’s services as a translator. Seems he had been something senior in Afghanistan’s Aviation Ministry, and had spent time in the States. Whatever, his age was much respected in Afghan society and he became a valued member of our team.

The capture of Kabul seemed like a decisive achievement at the time but it turned out to be just the beginning of a war that has already lasted a decade.  Over the next 10 years, I worked almost exclusively in Afghanistan and Iraq, usually six months a year or more. Much of it with the U.S. forces, who I grew to admire for their courage, professionalism, sense of patriotism and along with their loved ones, an ability to handle what must have been heart-wrenchingly long separations from family. God bless them all.

 By Atia Abawi, NBC News Correspondent 

KABUL – Outside the walls of Kabul University, students, professors and passersby go about their day in the capital of Afghanistan. Many are unaware that in a few days it will be the 10th anniversary of one of America’s darkest days.

There is no question that the Sept. 11 attacks changed America and the world. Perhaps no one saw more change than the millions of Afghans who lived under the oppressive Taliban regime that hosted the al-Qaida leaders responsible for the horrific attacks – and as a result have been subjected to 10 years of war.

NBC News’ producer Akbar Shinwari, photojournalist Tony Zumbado and I spoke to a variety of Afghans on the dusty but paved road outside Kabul University to get their perspective on how life has changed – for better or worse – since the attacks of 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Naweed Omar, a 23-year-old psychology student at the university, told us that many Afghans were very excited when America and the NATO coalition came to help –they thought their lives would finally improve. 

But after 10 years that excitement has turned to hopelessness and resentment.

“If we compare America’s arrival to the arrival of the Russians, the Russians did more work for the country,” Omar said comparing the building and infrastructure the Soviets provided Afghanistan in the 1980s to what Afghanistan has seen since 2001. 

“Just look at it, Russia was one country that did so much work and now you have 40 countries who have done nothing,” he added.
Ziarmal Safi, a 25-year-old English literature student, agreed that the international community could have done more in the last decade, but he also believes that the Afghans still need outside help.

“Afghans, they do not have the capacity to take [on] the security or to ensure the security all over in Afghanistan,” he said, “I don’t want America to leave, but I want America to concentrate a little bit more.”

Safi said that the Americans have spent lots of money in Afghanistan but that his own government and the American government have squandered that money by not implementing a system of accountability.

“They’re supporting [the] Afghan government and [the] Afghan people. They give them money, but they don’t ask them where did they spent all this money.”

Women’s rights have changed – for the better
But money and security hasn’t been the only issue. Human rights and women’s rights were in the forefront when the war began, but those issues have been almost forgotten as the focus has turned to talks of Taliban reconciliation and international withdrawal.

Many Afghan women have stories of banishment and humiliation before 2001.  During the Taliban regime, women were restricted from working, receiving an education or even leaving their house without being escorted by a male relative.

“When the Taliban were here we always say it was really the dark, dark condition here.  Even the people of Afghanistan couldn’t believe that they are human,” Yalda Mojadidi, a 23-year-old psychology student at Kabul University, told me.

Mojadidi said that with the arrival of the Americans and the international community, much has changed in her life and the lives of women throughout the country – she was finally allowed to go to school again.

“[There] is lots of changes for us,” she said in English, “Especially for women.  They can go to university, college, school, anywhere and they can work as well.”

Johannes Eisele / AFP - Getty Images

US soldiers gather near a destroyed vehicle and protect their faces from rotor wash, as their wounded comrades are airlifted by a Medevac helicopter from the 159th Brigade Task Force Thunder to Kandahar Hospital Role 3, on August 23, 2011. Click on the photo to see a complete slideshow of pictures from Afghanistan

Edrees Bahadur, a 21-year-old economics major, agreed with Yalda. He said that Sept. 11 changed Afghanistan for the better by bringing attention to the country’s dire situation.

“America with its alliance came to Afghanistan and Afghanistan [gained] an independent government – so that caused Afghanistan to improve and to strengthen their capacities,” he said.

But Bahadur and Mojadidi warn that their country still needs the help of the international community.

“My hope for Afghanistan is that peace and stability [will] come,” Mojadidi said. “The foreigners should not go from Afghanistan, they should stay here.  If they go back, I think that the situation [of] 10 years before – it will come again.”

Some still long for the good old days
But there are still some who welcomed the days of the Taliban and a strict Islamic government.

Those people – usually men – tell stories of not worrying about air assaults and criminal gangs in the Taliban days. 

“During the Taliban time, if you had a sack full of money on your back and you put that on the road and left it there, nobody would touch it – nobody had the courage to touch it,” 40-year-old teacher Haji Shadeem of Paktika province told us.

Shadeem believes his country has spiraled out of control.  

“Everyone [now] has worries that they will be killed on any day. They are waiting for their death.  And we don’t know from which side,” he said, fearing both the insurgency and NATO forces.