Marjan, the long-suffering big cat of the Kabul Zoo, died at age 25: Marjan, who lost an eye to a grenade thrown into his cage, had become a symbol of Afghanistan's suffering over two decades of war and chaos before succumbing to apparent kidney and liver failure. Miserable conditions at Kabul's war-ravaged zoo prompted an outpouring of donations from abroad after the fall of the Islamic extremist Taliban militia. Marjan the lion had a hard life. In the 1990s, an Afghan guerrilla showing off for his friends jumped over the guardrail into Marjan's den, and the lion killed him. The next day, the dead man's vengeful brother threw a grenade into the cage, and the explosion took out Marjan's eye.