That was considered a White House PR failure, and critics have said Obama should not have appeared alongside the soldier's father, who has been mocked for his long, "Taliban-style" beard.
The Afghan government has sent some of its soldiers to be trained in Pakistan for the first time as part of an attempt to secure vital regional help to end the decade-long Taliban insurgency.
Before long, the Taliban was letting him use the country as what Mr. Anas called a "jihad camp for the world".
His home in Panjwai and the other districts around Kandahar city — long the Taliban's heartland — had been a main hub of mujahedeen during the Soviet occupation.
Her father, who once led a school for girls and has shown uncommon bravery in supporting his daughter's aspirations, said she had long defied Taliban threats.
The attack on Mullah Salam was emblematic of the fight for Musa Qala, long a Taliban stronghold and a center for opium smuggling.
Mr. Obama signed off on a policy early this year that talks were possible as long as Taliban leaders, at the end of the process, agreed to renounce violence, lay down their arms, and pledge fidelity to the Afghan Constitution.
Not long ago, "Taliban media" would have seemed an oxymoron; when they held power in Afghanistan, their media operations consisted mainly of covering up human faces in oil paintings hanging in Kabul ministries.
Between 2005 and 2011, he did 17 stints in Kandahar in the southern region, long a Taliban stronghold.
These include but are not restricted to the long existing Taliban propaganda campaign that considers vaccination as part of a western plot to create infertility among Muslims, as well as the idea that western vaccines contain pig products.
A similar-size force retook Garmsir, then Marjah, a long-standing Taliban stronghold.
