Everyman

Jihad - Afghanistan's Holy War (1986x9)

Air date: Oct 12, 1986

This BAFTA award-winning series returns with a remarkable documentary, probably the most revealing portrait of Afghanistan at war yet made. Taking over a year to make, and filmed at great personal risk, Jihad contains sequences of combat, interrogation of prisoners, and daily life under Soviet occupation. It concentrates on a group of Afghan warriors, based in Kandahar, the country's second largest city. They include a 9-year-old street assassin and a chief executioner of the Islamic Court. Several were captured or killed during the making of the film. The war in Afghanistan is nearly seven years old: it has cost over 1,000,000 lives, and created 4,000,000 refugees. But coverage of it in the West has been sparse. This film shows the war at closer quarters than ever before.