The Blue Mosque

The Mazar area is one of the most secure metropolitan areas in the country. And the Balkh province, generally, is pretty secure. It seems, though, that the insurgent activity in some of the neighboring provinces has been on the rise the past couple months. Now, there is some activity in a couple of the Balkh districts to. Two weeks ago they shot up a school warned the kids not to go to school. This week they left the following message at another school: “Dear teachers and headmasters, we request you to close schools and do not go to schools. If we find any of you going to school, We will kill you.” Isn’t that a sweet message. It is impossible to comprehend the thinking of these loons.


The weather is fairly pleasant. It is hot – the past few days have been close to 110 F but, if you can stay in the shade it is not bad, and it cools down quickly when the sun goes down.

This week I visited the Blue Mosque (pictures). It is one of the most holy Mosques in the world. Here, many believe, is the tomb of, Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammad. It is a very beautiful building, and people come from far away to worship there. Others think he (Ali) is buried in Iraq, but where ever he is inturred, this mosque is to honor him and it is a beautiful place. The city name, Mazar-i-Shairf means “noble shrine.”

I have nothing to report about the CNAT situation. Everything remains the same. We are scheduled to be out of here on June 27th, and the Afghans have still recieved no official notice about anything. I hope that the lack of notification for the Afghans means that they (the Ministry of Counter Narcotics) are figuring out how to use them rather than just throwing them away. That’s the only logical thing I can think of.