A Thousand Splendid Suns

the Mujahideen and waited for her parade. Waited for her sons' enemies
to fall.
* * *
And, eventually, they did. In April 1992, the year Laila turned fourteen.
Najibullah surrendered at last and was given sanctuary in the UN
compound near Darulaman Palace, south of the city.
The jihad was over. The various communist regimes that had held
power since the night Laila was born were all defeated. Mammy's heroes,
Ahmad's and Noor's brothers-in-war, had won. And now, after more than
a decade of sacrificing everything, of leaving behind their families to live
in mountains and fight for Afghanistan's sovereignty, the Mujahideen
were coming to Kabul, in flesh, blood, and battle-weary bone.
Mammy knew all of their names.
There was Dostum, the flamboyant Uzbek commander, leader of the
Junbish-i-Milli faction, who had a reputation for shifting allegiances. The
intense, surly Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-e-Islami faction,
a Pashtun who had studied engineering and once killed a Maoist student.
Rabbani, Tajik leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami faction, who had taught
Islam at Kabul University in the days of the monarchy. Sayyaf, a Pashtun
from Paghman with Arab connections, a stout Muslim and leader of the
Ittehad-i-Islami faction. Abdul Ali Mazari, leader of the Hizb-e-Wahdat
faction, known as Baba Mazari among his fellow Hazaras, with strong
Shi'a ties to Iran.
And, of course, there was Mammy's hero, Rabbani's ally, the brooding,
charismatic Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir.
Mammy had nailed up a poster of him in her room. Massoud's handsome,