I watched this program a year before the 9/11 attacks. I've been reccommending it to everyone I talk to for an understanding of the conflict. I found these parts of it that cover much of the connection and there are other, shorter snippets on the Pushtunwali and it's origins. I really think everyone should watch this program in it's entirety.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-L0cbf7OB4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWFiQ-RUIzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC66m5gtChU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oghgoov6LY4

........ and to try and tell them all apart as to who is a so called 'terrorist' being US or British..... it's darn near impossible. Pakaistan/Afghanistan..... tribes built on hate from years of wars and conflicts.


http://www.economist.co.uk/research/articl...ory_id=10608929

The war in Afghanistan is not against a monolithic Taliban movement. In much of the country it is entwined with older struggles rooted in tribalism.

In Helmand a 20-year-old battle involves at least three main factions competing for control of the province's huge opium trade. The dominant grouping since 2001 has been that of the Akhundzada family, who are members of the Alizai tribe, and their various allies. Sher Mohammed Akhundzada was Helmand's governor till he was ousted in December 2005 under British pressure over his links to the drugs business. President Hamid Karzai has now called his ouster a mistake, citing the Taliban's successes in the area since then. It is true that Mr Akhundzada had kept the scale of the fighting in check. But the thuggery of his regime had also provoked widespread anger, and sowed the seeds for the Taliban's return.

In Sangin, power after 2001 was in the hands a warlord from the Alikozai tribe named Dad Mohammad Khan and his family, allies of the Akhundzadas. Predatory rulers, they favoured their own tribal faction and that of the Akhundzadas, while marginalising other groups, notably the Itzhakzai tribe, which had enjoyed considerable local clout under the Taliban.

In June 2006 40 members of Dad Mohammad's family were killed in a single day as the Taliban seized back control of the district. Few locals mourned their overthrow. The attackers were all Itzhakzais, according to other tribal leaders. It is not clear which affiliation mattered more: to the tribe, or to the Taliban.

Sensitivity to Afghanistan's tribal complexity has become all the rage. The American army has deployed anthropologists to help its troops understand the shifting mosaic of tribal interest groups. In Parliament in December, Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, lapsed into Pushto when he talked about beefing up “traditional Afghan arbakai” (ie, tribal policing arrangements); he said Britain needed to “understand the tribal dynamics”.

Easier said than done. A crude ethnic breakdown—about 40% of Afghans are Pushtun, 30% Tajiks, and the rest Hazaras, Turkmen, Uzbeks and others—masks baffling complexity. One veteran says that to fight in Afghanistan “you must approach every village as its own campaign.”

And that means understanding Pushtun tribal culture. There are some 60 Pushtun tribes and 400 sub-tribes, many at odds with each other. Since the 18th century, supremacy has been held almost continuously by the Durrani tribal federation. The NATO invasion of 2001, toppling the Taliban, enabled the three main Durrani tribes, the Popolzai (the tribe of President Karzai), the Barakzai and the Alikozai (Dad Mohammad's group), to reclaim their dominance. That angered both non-Durranis and some smaller Durrani tribes.

For their part, the Taliban have always held themselves above tribal politics. Indeed, they regard tribal custom as a deviation from sharia law. But where individual tribes feel badly treated, the Taliban are willing allies. Intriguingly, provinces where tribal structures are strongest, such as Paktia, Paktika and Khost, have proved most resistant to Taliban encroachment.

It's a decent theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Pas...from_Israelites

There's at least more evidence supporting that, than there is for Anglo Saxons, Native Americans, or the Japanese.

That said, it's a bit like saying Ashkenazim are "all" descended from Khazars. Some may be, probably the majority are not. Likewise, there may be some descent among the Pashtun from Assyrian exiles from Samaria, but it may only be true for some of them.

I do find it interesting that Jacobovici says many of the Pashtun want to migrate to Israel. You can imagine there might be some there definitely weighing the fact that it might put the famous "demographic problem" of Israel on hold. The country has 11 million Pashtuns.

It seems to me DNA testing could solve the riddle once and for all. They found that tribe in Zimbabwe that were genetically linked to a group of Cohen priests who fled south through Yemen after the destruction of the First Temple. But the major implication to me was, if they are indeed some of the Lost Tribes, that would entitle all of them to the Right of Return. One of the other scenes that I remember from this piece is the kids in the madrassas rocking back and forth while they read Scripture, just like the kids in Hebrew School reading Torah. Also consider the clannish nature of the tribes in the Northwest Frontier as a mechanism for maintaining blood lines. Also from the program Jacobovici makes the point that the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmen all have tribal traditions of the Pathans coming from outside the area to settle it during the Persian Empire.

RE: Japanese. Actually the Japanese are ethnic Koreans and it's the Ainu people, the aboriginal Japanese who share ethnicity with Native Americans.

Yah. I know. But there is a group in Japan that claims they are a Lost Tribe also. Their claim is a bit more unlikely.

Of course, Japan even says they have Jesus' tomb. Guess he really got around, since there is supposed to be one in Kashmir, also.

http://www.thiaoouba.com/tomb.htm

What convinces me about Jacobovici is for once he looked in the right place - exactly where the Assyrian empire sent its deportees.

Of course, I don't like the eschatological flavor of some of his work -- I don't like when he stops and mugs for the camera and ponders "Am I helping to bring about the end of days"? (I don't think so.)