A young jihadist returns to the Afghan border, only to find the desperate remnants of his once-feared unit.

The son of longtime Afghan war refugees living in Pakistan, Hanif had just turned 15 when (against his parents’ strenuous objections) he ran away to join the war against the U.S. forces in his home country. That was in early 2009, and for the next year and more, the bright but impressionable boy lived among al Qaeda fighters in the isolated wilds of North Waziristan. His parents finally persuaded him to return home in June 2010, but he headed out again this past June in hope of reconnecting with his old unit. He was shocked by what he found. “The flower is wilting,” he told a Newsweek correspondent who met with him in December in a Taliban safe house near the Afghan town of Khost. “I think the once-glorious chapter of al Qaeda is being closed.”

Unfortunately, the article, while interesting, reads a bit like propaganda. It’s possible that Al Qaeda was never as strong as Americans imagined, and was merely portrayed that way by the media. On the other hand, it’s possible that Al Qaeda (and similar groups) remain strong, and that the claims of one 17-year-old boy should be taken with a grain of salt. A good read nonetheless.

(Via Mental Floss.)