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A photograph taken shortly before my arrest for having looked through the lens of my Hasselblad, but not actually photographing, some containers near the airbase runway. Bagram, Afghanistan. 30 November 2006...To my amazement, neither the generals nor the officers working at the base knew of Alexander the Great, who had camped in this area in February 329 BCE before crossing the Hindu Kush in pursuit of Bessus, who was complicit in the assassination of the Persian King Darius III. From Alexander's camp sprang the city Alexandria ad Caucasum, probably today's Charikar or Bagram. The present day rulers of Bagram were equally unaware of the Arabs' conquest of the place in 698 (78/79 after Hijrah)...Built by the Americans during the Cold War in the 1950s, Bagram served as a staging point for the Soviet forces in the early days of the invasion. At 1900 hours on 26 December 1979 an airborne regiment landed on the airfield and together with other forces and advisers already in the country seized all the key military and political installations in the capital and the surrounding area. . (KEYSTONE/VII Photo/Daniel Schwartz)