January 20, 2002	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 5, 1422

KANDAHAR, Jan 19: Police fired into the air to break up a banned dogfight in the southern city of Kandahar on Saturday, sending hundreds of people running for cover.

Dogfighting, an Afghan tradition, was revived after the fall of the Taliban, but then banned again by Kandahar’s new governor, Gul Agha.

“I’ve been doing this since childhood, my forebears used to do this,” said Mohammed Omar, organiser of what might have been the last fight in Afghanistan’s second city.

Thirty dogs had been scheduled for the afternoon’s entertainment of an excited crowd of about 500 men and boys, who bayed for blood as the animals were led out by the owners and unleashed.

Afghanistan’s new interim government has been trying to restore order in the wake of the Taliban’s collapse, and dogfighting has been outlawed less out of concern for the animals than the likelihood of bloodshed among the spectators.—Reuters