Khadim Ali Escape from Kabul

n mid-August two weeks after the Taliban swept through Kabul, a Sunni Muslim Pashtuns driver made his way quietly from Quetta in Pakistan, to Kandahar in Afghanistan. He often ferries people between the two cities, and he wasn’t going to let Taliban border guards stop him. But this time he was on a special mission. He was to collect a cushion that had been abandoned at the Kandahar bus terminal by a group of artisan weavers who had fled Kabul hoping to reach safety in Quetta. The group were studio assistants of Hazara Australian artist Khadim Ali, who for a decade had maintained a studio in the beleaguered city. The assistants, along with a cohort of local women “art weavers,” wove Ali’s lush, politically charged tapestries and carpets. Even though