(DW) – He rose to fame last summer after helping a militia break a Taliban siege in his home province following the death of his father. But the life of 10-year-old Wasil Ahmad – declared a hero by the local Afghan police and used as a poster-child by pro-government forces – was tragically cut short. Last week, Ahmad, who had just enrolled in fourth grade, was shot in the head twice in a revenge attack by the insurgents as he made his way to school in the volatile city of Tarinkot, capital of Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgan province. And yet tragic as it may be, the case of Ahmad is not an isolated one in a country destabilized by decades of violence.
