ISLAMABAD - Giving shelter to one who asks is a centuries-old Pashtun tradition that may be why Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden lives in Afghanistan as a guest and is not on trial for the deaths of thousands in worldwide attacks.
Shelter is part of an unwritten code called Pashtunwali, or Pakhtunwali - the way of the Pashtuns - that people in this region are required to uphold even at the cost of their lives.
Its violators risk derision of their descendants for generations. Bin Laden is the prime United States suspect in last week's attacks in New York and Washington and is also wanted for several other anti-US attacks across the world. But Afghanistan's Taleban rulers, who are Pashtun, won't hand him over.
Pashtuns are the dominant ethnic community in Afghanistan as well as in the North West Frontier Province of neighbouring Pakistan.
Other pillars of the Pashtunwali code include hospitality, revenge and honour - the last being responsible for frequent honour killings of Pashtun women who marry outside the tribe without parental consent.
