KABUL — On a yellowing football pitch, next to concrete walls and razor wire, World Cup fever is running high for Afghan women footballers who dream of scoring for their war-torn country.

Training sessions may be interrupted by US helicopters landing, but the women play hard, tackling each other to the ground under the scorching summer sun.

"If anybody does that to me again, I'll do it to her," shouts one of the players after coming down in a tackle.

"Why are you laughing?" yells another at her teammates. "We have to be serious and exercise seriously."

Afghanistan is not likely to compete in a World Cup any time soon but its women's side trains fiercely in the heat, wearing headscarfs, track suits and long sleeves that cover everything except hands and faces.

Wearing shorts in Afghanistan is taboo. A few of the more daring players have swapped Muslim veils for baseball caps as they train next to the NATO headquarters in Kabul, nerve centre of a nine-year fight against the Taliban.

With the World Cup under way in South Africa, Hadisa Wali isn't missing a second of the action. She predicts victory for Brazil but her football hero is Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid's star Portuguese midfielder.

Her favourite female players are Brazil's Marta Vieria da Silva and Germany's Birgit Prinz, two stars of international women's football.

Teammate Khalida Popal calls football "a passion" but a struggle for women, who were forbidden from sport and all public activities, including going to school, under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.

"It's hard to play football here," she explains. Aged 20, she is one of the oldest players in a young Afghan team. She watches recruits shooting at the goal, clad in T-shirts bearing the image of President Hamid Karzai.

"Some families refuse, they say this is not for girls," she says. "Others don't like it that we go abroad without our families."

In 2007, the women's team started to travel, playing in Germany, Jordan and Pakistan.

"Sometimes, it just makes me cry. You have to fight to continue to play. It's just like the Americans who fight against the Taliban," she says.

Under the post-Taliban Afghan constitution, women are equal to men and a handful have competed in overseas competitions, mostly in martial arts events.

But women's groups say they remain the most marginalised and underprivileged group in the country, subject to violence and discrimination in the name of Afghan tradition. The war is another hindrance.

In the middle of training, the team suddenly races for the stands as -- without warning -- two US helicopters prepare to land on the pitch.

"Normally they warn us, but this time they've forgotten," says Wali, bending over to protect herself from the powerful downdraft as a Black Hawk has just set down on the grass.

Due to safety concerns in Kabul, where Taliban suicide attacks are on the rise and where facilities are few, women play on ground attached to the general headquarters of the 142,000-strong foreign military in Afghanistan.

When the aircraft take off, training can resume. In red jerseys and football boots, the teenagers run drills under the watchful eye of their trainer, the only man to be seen.
Kawsaz Amine, 16, came to watch. She feels sick so is not playing, listening to pop star Shakira's World Cup hit on her mobile phone.
Like her sister, who also plays in the national team, she was brought up with a passion for "The Beautiful Game".

"My father was footballer, my uncle too. They are very happy that I play in national team," Amine says.

For her, Argentina are well placed to win the World Cup. Her favourite player and inspiration is Argentine star striker

Lionel Messi.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/...orld+cup-hs-02

Try to just get over your political reservations while reading this article

LOL! They play soccer inside military base of Americans. In the same place other women have reported to be gang-raped by the guardians of Afghan national soccer team.

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/cia-afghanistan.pdf

Was neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
raped and tortured at US Bagram prison?


The strange case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

by
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - August 14, 2008 - (ACN) It appear that the Bush Administration may have another "Abu Ghraib Prison" type torture scandal in its hands that it is desperately attempting to cover up. The disturbing human rights case involves a Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University educated Pakistani national that mysteriously disappeared, along with her three children, in Afghanistan in 2003. This past week the seriously injured, bleeding, frail, traumatized and confused Dr. Siddiqui re-appeared in a wheel chair in a New York federal court accused of terrorism and to face charges that she attempted to kill FBI and US soldiers in Afghanistan.
No one would have known about what some Pakistanis are calling "one of the most deplorable crimes against womanhood" if it had not been for human rights organizations speaking out against the rape and torture of "Prisoner 650" that was being held at the US Bagram Theater Internment Facility, a miserable prison that was previously utilized as air base hangers by the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) just recently picked up the story and the Bush Administration seems to be acting quickly to cover up what many consider to be a war crime.
On Tuesday, they chose their front man, Brian Ross of ABC News, to begin propagandizing against Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in order to justify to the American people the gruesome treatment of the Pakistani neuroscientist at the hands of US authorities in Afghanistan and their lackey Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Many of you may remember that Brian Ross was also the Neocon front man in the national news concerning the Anthrax Terrorist Attacks in 2001. He was reporting that the anthrax sent to U.S. political and media figures was linked to Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program. That was a lie. No tests ever revealed any such thing. Like Colin Powell, he was attempting to create the perception in the public's mind that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks and that it possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The FBI has accused Dr. Siddiqui of being an al-Qaida terrorist. Her father was educated as a doctor in Britain. Her brother is an architect from Houston and her sister is a Harvard University-trained neurologist. Because Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Muslim, the FBI started investigating her as far back as 2001when she lived in Boston.
The FBI harassment of Dr. Siddiqui and her family prompted her to return to Pakistan around 2002. Soon after, the FBI issued a "Wanted Poster" on Dr. Siddiqui and alerted the Pakistani Pervez Musharraf's regime. After her picture appeared on the FBI "Wanted Poster", Dr. Siddiqui was picked up by alleged US/Musharraf operatives in 2003 while she was visiting, along with her three children, in Afghanistan and imprisoned in the notorious Bagram prison. Dr. Siddiqui, according to human rights organizations became "Prisoner 650" and for 5 years suffered repeated rapes, water boarding and other forms of torture.
Soon after the horrific story surfaced in the international media, it appears that the alleged torturers moved quickly to cover up their crime. There are serious allegations that Dr. Siddiqui was "framed" in order to justify the abominable human rights violations against her. Credible human rights sources, including her US attorneys, are claiming that the Bagram prison torturers, temporarily released the traumatized and confused victim, planted evidence on her and re-arrested her on charges of terrorism in July of this year. They then set up a situation inside the prison to accuse her of attempting to kill FBI agents and US soldiers. The alleged torturers are saying that as she was about to be questioned by the FBI and US soldiers in a room in the Afghan prison, that she picked up an M4 rifle and fired at a US soldier. Another soldier fired at her with a pistol and wounded her in the abdomen. An Amnesty International official said "It seems extraordinary to imagine that four U.S. agents who'd gone to pick her up — two military, two FBI — along with at least two Afghan translators, were somehow surprised by this woman, who overpowered them, grabbed a gun, flipped the safety, fired off a couple of shots, and then could only be subdued by shots to the torso."
There is no information about what may have occurred to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's three children. Dr. Siddiqui is scheduled to appear again before a well known anti-Muslim United States Magistrate Judge of the Southern District of New York on September 3, 2008.



Was neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui raped and tortured at US Bagram prison?

Man why are you two playing football here, it's just a sport ..leave the politics out of it eh?

Respected AfghanSoulja, Thanks for the post. I also added the source to it so they can get credit for it.

nice post.. good for Afghans and Afghan women





shlombay.. sometimes u dont need source for everything.. whatever is clear it shows..
if sangar makes me the source of what he said, wil u accept whatever i say?
Makes me make a topic
leme make a topic about facts

Wish to see em in world cup

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit walay da cha da Plar HEWAD na da Sher Shah Luray ba

khpo guhndaska (Football) na kwe............

Bas kna da Khazo Freedem dumra wi ?

Za da Pukhtano Khazo da tolo ghat fredom yam khu

Dasey khu hem na wi...........Zma da Arkha Bakhna ghwaram....

ka Keday shi Topic Delte ka...