Part 2 of an email from Afghanistan - 'Pakistan is committed to a broken, bloody Afghanistan, and has thrown its budget and its intelligence services into equipping the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and any other group that would agree to decimate that nation. One reason is the fear of the dissolving of its current border with Afghanistan (the Durand Line) which ceded nearly half of Afghanistan away to British India (now Pakistan) for 100 years. The treaty expired in 1993. The Afghans all agree that Pakistan unlawfully occupies some of their best land, the heartland of the Pashtuns. Pakistan knows that a strong, united Afghanistan will press its claim for what amounts to almost half of Islamabad's own beleaguered territories. The Afghan leadership ethos is full of bribery, black market, blood loyalties, and blood feuds. Pray for the tribal elders of each locality, whose corporate decisions can either strengthen or fragment the fibre of their society far more than the Kabul government or its foreign allies.

Pray: that elders would shut out the men of blood from their midst and welcome men tasked with development; also that their sons would be saved from the delusion of Islamic martyrdom. (Is.32:1,2)