Pashto

Our Pashto interpreter explained how he had pretended to be a Pakistani policeman when interested crowds approached the compound.

Over the course of these meetings, Zalwar Khan, whose name in Pashto means brave leader, becomes more relaxed.

He is an articulate, gifted speaker in his native Pashto, and is fluent in Persian and Arabic.

I remember speaking with Taliban mullahs: black beards, white turbans, Arabic inflection to their Pashto.

On Thursday the Taliban website Al Emara posted a Pashto-language editorial headlined “Libertine Friend.”