Musharraf told our people that he had no choice but to cooperate with the Americans. He said they had told him, ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,’ and threatened to ‘bomb us back to the Stone Age’ if we stood against them. But we weren’t exactly cooperating as the ISI was still arming Taliban fighters and giving their leaders sanctuary in Quetta. They even persuaded the Americans to let them fly hundreds of Pakistani fighters out of northern Afghanistan. The ISI chief asked the Americans to hold off their attack on Afghanistan until he had gone to Kandahar to ask the Taliban leader Mullah Omar to hand over bin Laden; instead he offered the Taliban help.

穆沙拉夫将军向人民说他别无选择，只能与美国人合作。他说美国人告诉他：“你如果不是和我们同一阵线，就是跟恐怖分子一起。”并且还恐吓说，如果我们不合作，他们就要“把我们炸回石器时代”。但我们也没有完全与美国合作，ISI继续为塔利班战士提供武力补给，并在奎达为塔利班领导人提供庇护。他们甚至说服美国，让他们从阿富汗北部用飞机送数百名巴基斯坦武装分子出境。ISI首长要求美军暂停对阿富汗动武，等他到坎大哈去要求塔利班领导人穆罕默德·奥马尔[1]交出本·拉登；但其实他却在向塔利班政权提供协助。

In our province Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who had fought in Afghanistan against the Russians, issued a fatwa against the US. He held a big meeting in Malakand, where our ancestors had fought the British. The Pakistani government didn’t stop him. The governor of our province issued a statement that anyone who wanted to fight in Afghanistan against NATO forces was free to do so. Some 12,000 young men from Swat went to help the Taliban. Many never came back. They were most likely killed, but as there is no proof of death, their wives can’t be declared widows. It’s very hard on them. My father’s close friend Wahid Zaman’s brother and brother-in-law were among the many who went to Afghanistan. Their wives and children are still waiting for them. I remember visiting them and feeling their longing. Even so, it all seemed far, far away from our peaceful garden valley. Afghanistan is less than a hundred miles away, but to get there you have to go through Bajaur, one of the tribal areas between Pakistan and the border with Afghanistan.

苏菲·穆罕默德毛拉曾在阿富汗与苏军打过仗，他对美国发出了宣战的教令。他在马拉坎县，也就是我们祖先对抗英军的地方，召开了一场很盛大的集会，巴基斯坦政府并没有阻止他。我们的省政府发布了一个公告，声称任何想要反抗北约组织、想到阿富汗打仗的人都可以自由前往。大约有1.2万名斯瓦特青年去帮助塔利班政权。许多人一去便再也没有回来。虽然那些人应该都已经死了，但却找不到死亡证据，他们的妻子也因此无法获得寡妇身份。这让她们的生活更艰难了。父亲的朋友瓦西德·祖曼的哥哥和姐夫也加入了这批前往阿富汗打仗的人群，他们的妻儿至今还在等他们回来。我还记得当我们去探望时，感觉到的那种殷切期盼。但即便如此，这一切对于我们这个花园般的河谷地区来说，好像仍是很遥远的事。阿富汗距离我们不到160公里远，但要去阿富汗，必须先穿越巴焦尔，这是处于巴基斯坦与阿富汗边界的部落区域。

Bin Laden and his men fled to the White Mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, where he had built a network of tunnels while fighting the Russians. They escaped through these and over the mountains into Kurram, another tribal agency. What we didn’t know then was that bin Laden came to Swat and stayed in a remote village for a year, taking advantage of the Pashtunwali hospitality code.

本·拉登让他的手下先逃到阿富汗东部托拉博拉地区的白山，躲在当年他和苏军打仗时在那里挖出的隧道里。然后，他们利用隧道，穿越山岭来到库拉姆地区，再继续前往其他塔利班所在地。我们当时并不知道本·拉登逃到斯瓦特，他还利用了普什图习俗的好客守则，在偏远的村子里住了一年。