The first thing Mansour, 10, and Fawad, 9, did when their parents handed them holiday cash was to rush to the corner market and buy plastic guns resembling a Glock and a Beretta.
Dressed in their new Eid clothes, the pair spent most of the morning playing with their new toys on the streets of Kabul's Shahr-e Naw neighborhood. They were soon joined by other children, including young girls in frilly dresses and plastic pearls, all brandishing plastic firearms meant to resemble AK-47s or 9-millimeter pistols.
During the annual Eid holidays, three days each, twice a year, the streets of Afghanistan are increasingly packed with children shooting plastic pellets from air guns that bear a striking resemblance to actual weapons.