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Alone At Windows On the World: No 9/11

December 1996
Chechnya, Russian-Azerbaijani border


The Russian border guard frowned as he examined the Arab?...Muslim-looking? man's passport.

"I'm sorry sir, but you're going to have to come with me. All of you."

He gestured to the man's companions, who then started to protest. But no sooner then when they had opened their mouths, an explosion hit the border post.

===

A few minutes later
Outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan

The driver was drunk, a dangerous thing to do while driving in normal circumstances, more so in this mountainous area with poor roads, and even more so with the fundamentalist Taliban regime in power in Afghanistan. But he didn't care. He didn't care that his wife had been killed by Taliban soldiers for running out to the street without first putting on her cover to (unsuccessfully) save their son. He didn't care about lots of other things, either, because he was drunk so he could at least temporarily forget about all of them.

He didn't know where the bottle of wine came from. It was also like it came from God, he barely managed to think. This would be his last thought, as his truck carrying a full tank of propane crashed into a distracted group of foreign warriors or terrorists, depending on your point of view and exploded. Come to think of it, it was also a miracle that the driver had managed to drive this far without being noticed, stopped, or crashing...

===

Meanwhile, the burnt body of the "Arab-looking" man, his companions, and the Russian border guard were lying in a fire several hundred miles away, also in a propane truck accident...
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