Halfway through the journey home to Kabul, a Taliban militant stopped Fatima's bus, boarded, and began making a speech so extraordinary that the 23-year-old began to surreptitiously film it on her phone. The footage, partially obscured by Fatima's fingers as she tried to hide what she was doing, offers rare insight into what appears to be a "charm offensive" by the insurgents as they attempt to shed their brutal image in the minds of ordinary Afghans. It shows the thickly bearded and turbaned militant speaking gently in a mix of Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's two national languages. "Peace be upon you, I hope you aren't...
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