User:Geo Swan/Ghawchak (Uruzgan)

Ghawchak is a common placename in Afghanistan. Ghawchak village, in Charchina district of Uruzgan Province was both the site of a firefight where Australian commando Corporal Cameron Baird committed the courageous acts that earned him a posthumous Victoria Cross, and the birthplace of former Guantanamo captive Abdullah Khan.

The citation that describes the action where Baird was mortally wounded said the village was a Taliban stronghold. However, during his January 2005 Combatant Status Review Tribunal Khan testified that he was an ethnic Uzbek, from an ethnic Uzbek village. The Taliban is drawn entirely from Afghanistan's Pashtun ethic group. The two ethnic groups have different cultures, speak different languages, worsh