Tears ran down my cheeks that day

Written by: Waheedullah

While every nation of the world is discussing content and food issues, I want to share a brief story from my day. While US Congress and Burhanuddin Rabbani, Sayaf and Fahim, Dr. Abdullah and likewise other people were fighting over bombing rates against the people of Afghanistan and especially on the inheritors of Prophet Sallaho Allehe Wassalam, this was a dif ficult year for many Afghan families.
On the night of 24th December after my brother narrated a story from our neighboring area which was just hit by US B52 in Qandahar, I stopped at the main NY Post Of f ice (33rd & 8th), headquarters to the USPS
“Operation Santa Claus” program. I turned to a news stand and took a copy of ‘New York Times’. While a person was having the newspaper talking to his wif e as she was busy in choosing gif ts for Christmas, Abruptly, I heard a person face him and say, ‘yeah, we are the righteous of all the nations, we don’t bombard the poor Af ghans but it’s their leaders who are demanding an intensified bombing campaign, their people who are under the control of terrorists.
And you know our brave pilots, we are from grand canyon, hahaha, cheerup, and this Christmas would be very dif ferent for Americans.’I’m not one to easily show my emotions, but I hear stories one after another, with tears running down my face. Here is a story I chose from my brother’s phone calls. Fatima, age 6, who lives with her father and her mom, and with 2 sisters and a brother in the Qandahar City, likes playing with friends her own age in the fields around her house.
Her father works long hours to buy food for the family. Fatima, on the third day of American bombing of Qandahar city told her father to take her to Allah and she would tell Him to remove Americans from this peaceful world and destroy their airplanes, and if the father did not take her to Allah then the father was to let her go out to the deserts to pray to Allah Almighty. 11-year-old Ahmad also asks for Shahadat (martyrdom) and says to let him go out of the home to fight the invaders when they land.
The f ather was unable to give an answer so he finally asked the mother to satisfy them. “You are too young for fighting filthy invaders, Ahmad! And you should wait until you get older; the age for f ighting is at least 16,” the mother advised her son.
“And you Fatima, notify your demands f rom Allah to your father to pen it down and then he would send it to Allah’s house; Kaba e Shareef . And of course Allah will extend His Wrath over all the disbelievers.” They both got satisfied and Fatima ran and took a piece of paper with a half broken pen to her father and told her father to write; “Me, Fatima and all children of Muslims of Afghanistan are under attack of invaders, their airplanes are coming from their far away country to our land and are bombing us, they are not only the enemies of our country and our lives but also the enemies of your religion Islam, they came to remove the real Islamic Emirate f rom Af ghanistan. And moreover, they kill the children who can neither do any good nor harm to anyone. O my Allah! Send your extreme wrath over them and over all their supporters whether they are Afghan or any others. We hate Americans and their followers, kill them all.”
After finishing the letter the father and Ahmad went to a Masjid to perform Isha (night) prayers, and a bomb hit Fatima’s house and all members of the family except Ahmad and his father were martyred.
The father says that Fatima whispered into his ear in her last breath,

“Don’t send the letter now, I am meeting Allah very soon and I will tell all that we are facing in our country”.