A Taliban police officer drives a Humvee -- with a windshield that was hit by a bullet during the war -- past the destruction left behind in a flood zone in Chesht-e-Sharif, Herat, Afghanistan on May 11.
Kanni Wignaraja, the regional director for Asia and the Pacific at the United Nations Development Program, said prolonged drought in Afghanistan has so hardened soils that flash floods are particularly violent here. “The damage is huge,” she said in an interview. Safi cited the frequent inaccuracy of his smartphone’s weather app to explain his reasoning. Making it rain even when Google says the sky should be sunny “is God’s way of saying: I’m the boss,” he said.
“The Humvee is very strong, and it can’t be washed away,” Motmayan, a former Taliban commander, said. “It can go where others cannot go.”