Just noticed this Reuters story on Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria, 19, were arrested on Tuesday and charged in New Haven Superior Court with reckless endangerment, arson, breach of peace, criminal mischief and other offenses.
Police said the three torched a flag hanging from the porch of a house in New Haven near the Ivy League school.
Anklesaria is British and Angelopoulos is Greek. Both are freshmen. Akbar, a senior, was born in Pakistan but is a U.S. citizen, according to police and court documents.
Akbar worked as an informal translator for U.S. forces during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and later published a memoir, "Come Back to Afghanistan," about his experiences there, the Yale Daily News reported.
Wait a second. American citizen? Informal translator? Yale senior? Published author? Something sounded weird here, seemed to me like Reuters was leaving something out.
So I looked to see if this guy's book was on Amazon. And lo and behold:
http://www.amazon.com/...
Akbar's refreshingly unsentimental reminiscences of visiting his father's homeland as a teen make for an intriguing portrait of Afghanistan at a time of significant transition. On 9/11, Akbar, who was born in Peshawar in 1984 but grew up in the U.S., was living near Oakland, Calif., where his father ran a clothing store. After the attack, the elder Akbar, a descendant of an Afghan political family, returned to his country to take a job as President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman and, later, as governor of Kunar, a rural province.
The three are quoted in the story as saying this "was a dumb thing to do."
Something tells me there's more to this story. Has anyone read this book? Was Akbar critical of American policy?
UPDATE: Here's an interview with Akbar.
This Slate story written by him includes a photo of Akbar interviewing Karzai.
This 2004 WaPo story explains that Akbar was involved with the beating death of an Afghan prisoner:
Sayed Fazl Akbar, speaking into his son's tape recorder, said he asked the Americans to hold off using military force to capture Wali, who he said "had been on the Americans' and the coalition force's most-wanted list for cooperating with terrorists or being a terrorist." Wali was deeply fearful of turning himself in to the Americans, said the elder Akbar, so Akbar sent his son to go with him "as a sign of trust."
Said Hyder Akbar: "So I took him to the Americans. And, like, they're asking him where he was 14 days ago on the night of the three rockets. And this guy, like, don't have calendars, you know? . . . I just put my hand on his shoulder and I let him know: 'Just say the truth. Nothing is going to happen if you just say the truth.' And he was absolutely petrified, and he could barely whisper the okay."
Three days later, Hyder Akbar and his father returned to Asadabad to check on Wali. A translator named Steve and another American named Dave sat down with them, according to Hyder Akbar, and said, "Unfortunately, Abdul Wali passed away." Hyder Akbar said: "My jaw dropped. It's like 'Oh, my God.' . . . They said that at 3:30, 4, he just collapsed and they tried to make him stand again. And he stood for a second, but then he fell again and then they did the whole routine with the CPR and they said no expenses were held, just like they would have treated an American life."
"It's hard not to feel responsible," Akbar said. "Poor guy was only 28. He was just so scared."
This doesn't sound to me like someone who would be burning an American flag as a prank.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Another story written around the time his book was published has this to say:
At his father's side while history unfolds, notably at a conference of tribal leaders where the new government is launched and at national elections where the impervious Karzai becomes president, Akbar morphs from a queasy kid into a future Afghan leader. He studies Plato and Machiavelli, and he sees that development must precede democracy, because voters need passable roads to reach ballot boxes. Today, at 20, Akbar is founder of an agency that builds schools and pipe systems in the Kunar province that his father once governed
This was diaried earlier today here but with an entirely different angle.