'America was very far away': How Afghans remember 9/11

AFP/File photo

When hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in the United States, Afghans were still reeling from their own Al-Qaeda tragedy.  Militants from the group had two days earlier assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud -- the resistance icon who repelled both the Soviet military and the Taliban from his native Panjshir Valley. As Afghans grappled with his death, events were unfolding in the United States that were to dramatically change the course of their country's future.  But for some, the significance of the incident passed them by.