Spring marks the start of the “fighting season” for humans involved in Afghanistan's decade-long war -- but for birds, dogs, camels and even kites it reaches its peak.
At dawn on Friday mornings in Kabul's central park, hundreds of people converge with decorated cages full of fighting birds, including quail and roosters, as well as dogs, for a day of bloody combat by proxy.
“I was born and grew up in war, I love to see fighting, it is a good pastime,” says Najibullah, 30, while fondling his bird and preparing it for a big fight.
In the park, big roosters with bloody beaks fight and dogs rip into each other as crowds of excited men roar around them.
Outside of the capital, particularly in northern areas of the country, people also make camels, rams and bulls fight, for the “fun” of watching them -- and for gambling on the outcome.
Animal fighting was banned as un-Islamic under the Taliban's 1996-2001 regime, but is once again a violent feature of daily life in Afghanistan -- as is the war between Taliban insurgents and 130,000 NATO troops.
Taliban militants have targeted animal fighting gatherings several times in the past. In February 2008, around 80 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked the crowd at a dog fight in Kandahar.
But Afghans, who live with war every day, are not deterred. Even when families and friends gather on windy hilltops to fly their kites, they do it to fight each other.
“As long as I remember, the people of Afghanistan have always been fighting for different causes, we cannot love anything else but fighting”, Shah says. –Photos by AFP.
