Category Archives: Taliban

Diana West: Eyeless in Afghanistan

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Written by: Diana West

Friday, August 06, 2010 3:18 AM 

This week’s column:

“Live our values,” Gen. David Petraeus wrote recently to troops in Afghanistan. “This is what distinguishes us from our enemies.”

Unfortunately, this is also what distinguishes us from many of our “friends.” This culture-chasm is what makes the infidel struggle for hearts and minds across Islamic lands so recklessly, wastefully futile, something I was once again reminded of on reading Time magazine’s cover story featuring 18-year-old Aisha. Aisha is a lovely Afghan girl whose husband and brother-in-law, on instructions from a local judge and Taliban commander, sliced off her ears and nose and left her dying to set an example for other wives thinking of running away from abusive in-laws. Only her discovery by U.S. troops saved Aisha’s life.

But where was Aisha’s father? Where was her family? Where were her town’s elders? Where was Hamid Karzai? Turns out her family did nothing to protect her from the Taliban, Time writes. Why? The magazine describes a mixture of fear and shame that I hope still strikes the average American family as so foreign as extra-terrestrials. Time further explains: “A girl who runs away is automatically considered a prostitute … and families that allow them back home would be subject to widespread ridicule.” When Aisha’s father enticed her home with promises of a new husband, the girl refused because she was fearful that her family would sell her into slavery, or murder her. Continue Reading →

Taliban backs Dutch socialist party in next election

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The Taliban has come out supporting the Dutch PDVSA party in the next Netherlands election. Go figure.


The Taliban thanks the PvdA [Labour Party, Socialists] for the upcoming departure of Dutch troops form Uruzgan. The radical Islamic terrorist organization says it hopes the PvdA will again make part of the Dutch government so that there will be a lasting friendly policy “toward Afghanistan”.

This was said by Qari Yusuf Ahmadii, the spokesman for the Taliban in southern and western Afghanistan in an exclusive interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.

Thanks to Gates of Vienna for this, and to VH for the translation from Dutch

Gates of Vienna has more here:

‘Man who killed UK troops in Afghanistan’ contacts BBC

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 BBCNEWS… A man who says he is the renegade Afghan soldier who killed three British troops in Helmand province in Afghanistan has contacted the BBC.

The man said he had been angry at the conduct of British troops and that he had acted alone. He said he joined the Taliban after the attack.

The three members of the Royal Gurkha Rifles died in a gun and rocket-propelled grenade attack on Tuesday.

The UK Ministry of Defence said it was aware of the man’s claims.

Since the three British soldiers – Major James Joshua Bowman, from Wiltshire, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, from Craigavon, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun, from Nepal – died on Tuesday, the BBC has been trying to find out why they were killed. Continue Reading →

Children used by Taliban to plant bombs, carry weapons

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From The Telegraph U.K., courtesy TROP

Children, aged 5, used to plant Taliban bombs in Afghanistan

Children as young as five are being used by the Taliban to lay bombs and carry weapons in a deadly new tactic in Afghanistan, it can be disclosed.

Thomas Harding in Sangin
Published: 10:00PM BST 30 Jun 2010
Children, aged 5, used to plant Taliban bombs in Afghanistan

Innocent children as young as five are being used by the Taliban to plant bombs Photo: JANE MINGAY

In the past five months the number child insurgents has increased almost fivefold in the town of Sangin, to a band of 40, who are used to run weapons, plant bombs and carry out tasks for the Taliban, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

According to military intelligence sources there are about 12 children being routinely used in the Sangin area just to plant bombs.

The Taliban have resorted to the tactic because they know that British troops are unlikely to fire on children planting IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They have also been forced into the change because sophisticated surveillance technology is able to pick up Taliban IED planting teams and take action against them.

On one occasion surveillance cameras picked up two children under 10 walking along the main road with one placing an IED in a hole followed by another covering it up with a bag of stone and earth. Continue Reading →

More Muslims killing more Muslims.

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

Pakistan sect demands protection after at least 93 members killed in militant assault on Lahore mosques

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:47 PM on 29th May 2010

Leaders of Pakistan’s minority Ahmadi sect demanded better government protection this morning as they buried many of the 93 sect members killed by Islamist militants at two of the group’s mosques.

The request could test the government’s willingness to take on hard-line Islamists whose influence is behind decades of state-sanctioned discrimination against the Ahmadis in the Sunni Muslim-majority country.

The attacks occurred minutes apart on Friday in two neighbourhoods in the eastern city of Lahore.

Two teams of gunmen, including some in suicide vests, stormed the mosques and sprayed bullets at worshippers while holding off police.

massacreA Pakistani policeman carries the bloodied body of a worshiper at one of two mosques stormed by gunmen in Lahore yesterday

Thirteen people died overnight at hospitals, raising the death toll to 93, said Raja Ghalab Ahmad, a local sect leader.

Dozens were hurt.

Waseem Sayed, a U.S.-based Ahmadi spokesman, said it was the worst attack in the group’s 121-year history.

Local TV channels reported that the Pakistani Taliban, or their Punjab province branch, had claimed responsibility. Continue Reading →

Afghan schoolgirls poisoned by Taliban?

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‘A smell like a flower reached my nose,’ says hospitalized girl

MSNBC

With H/T to TL

Image: Girl in hospital bed
A medic at the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, checks on one of the hospitalized schoolgirls.
View related photos
Fulad Hamdard / AP

msnbc.com news services

updated 12:57 p.m. ET April 25, 2010

KABUL – More than 80 schoolgirls have fallen ill in three cases of mass sickness over the past week in northern Afghanistan, raising fears that militants who oppose education for girls are using poison to scare them away from school.

The latest case occurred Sunday when 13 girls became sick at school, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea on Saturday, and 23 got sick last Wednesday. All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill.

None of the illnesses have been serious, and medical officials were still investigating the exact cause. The Health Ministry in Kunduz said blood samples were inconclusive and were being sent to Kabul for further testing.

Sayedi blamed the sickness on “enemies” who oppose education for girls. Presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said any attempt to keep girls out of school is a “terrorist act.” Continue Reading →

Sold, raped and jailed, a girl faces Afghan justice

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Reuters:

Deepa Babington
KABUL
Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:22pm EDT

Afghan girls escape home, not prison

Tue, Mar 30 2010

A prison guard (R) watches inmates from behind a fence during a media event at a women's prison in Kabul March 30, 2010. U Reuters/Tim Wimborne

KABUL (Reuters) – For the shy Afghan girl who sat quietly in a detention center with a pale blue headscarf, teenage rebellion had come at a heavy price: seven years in prison.

World

Engaged to an older man who had offered $5,000 to her father but in love with a boy she spoke to on the phone, the 16-year-old girl was hauled before a court that found her guilty of running away from home, according to an account she provided.

“I was engaged to an older man and I was not happy. He was painting his beard black,” said the girl, who cannot be named because of rules protecting juvenile detainees.

Now pregnant, she said she did not know who the baby’s father was, adding she had slept with both the boy she was in love with and the man she was engaged to. She also said she had been raped while in detention before being sent to the Kabul facility. The girl’s story offers a glimpse into the nature of Afghanistan’s rudimentary justice system, underscoring the uphill task ahead as U.S. President Barack Obama calls for improving the rule of law to match military gains in the country.

Obama has ordered an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to beat back a resurgent Taliban, but officials also recognize progress on civilian issues like corruption, governance and justice will be essential to bringing stability to the country.

“I’ve seen travesties in court,” said Kimberly Motley, a U.S. lawyer who interviewed 348 detainees, judges and others for a report on the juvenile justice system and also represents the pregnant Afghan girl in an effort to win her freedom.

“I’ve seen kids not even being brought into court for their hearing. Cases without any witnesses. And more times, no evidence than any evidence. And the verdict is always guilty.”

Young girls usually fare the worst within the system, she said. In a deeply conservative Muslim society where women were banned from education during Taliban rule, anything from trying to escape a forced marriage to walking down the street with a boy who is not a relative can land them in jail.

NO-WIN SITUATION

About half the young girls locked up in Afghan detention centres are charged with “moral crimes” like running away from home and adultery, Motley said. At times, runaways are booked on the surreal charge of “kidnapping” themselves, she said. Continue Reading →

An unwilling Afghan bride’s defiance leads to death

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 Frashta didn’t want to marry her cousin, and she fled. In a land where tradition and family honor are everything, that sealed her doom.

Dal gazes at the unmarked grave of his niece outside Charikar, Afghanistan. "She kept saying, 'I can't marry my cousin. If my mother gives me away to anyone else, I will marry him,' " he said.

 LA TIMES… Reporting from Charikar, Afghanistan – A child of the provinces can never run far. She should have known this. Frashta, though, was headstrong. Two shots from a hunting rifle in the night, then they rolled her in cloth and tried to hide her, but some things cannot be hidden. She was found in the yard.

“A bad woman,” said the cop.

“So beautiful that no words could describe her face,” said her uncle.

No one had a photograph; a picture wouldn’t tell the story of who she was anyway. A young bride who betrayed her marriage for another man. Or a woman who spent her short life peering through the mesh of a burka until one day she defied family and tradition and ran away from home after refusing to wed her cousin. In this land, both are dark, dark sins.

What would end her life began when she was a few months old. Word came that her father, a mujahid, had been killed in a battle with Soviet troops in the late 1980s. As is custom, Frashta’s mother became the second wife of her husband’s brother, Abdul. To ensure clan harmony, a match was quickly arranged for Frashta: When the girl came of age she would marry Abdul’s son, her cousin. Continue Reading →

MALE TERRORISTS DRESSED IN BOMB BURKAS SHOT DEAD IN AFGHANISTAN…….

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More warnings for the West, do not allow burkas or niqabs to be worn on your streets. There’s a whole host of moral considerations for the banning of the burka and the niqab, but one outweighs them all, the use of these garment bags in criminal activity. KGS

H/T: Reinhard

Burka-clad bomb attackers shot dead in Lashkar Gah

Afghan security forces have shot dead two militants who attacked a charity office in the southern city of Lashkar Gah, officials say.

They say the two men, wearing burkas, were killed before they could detonate their explosives-laden vests.

A woman working for the International Relief and Development charity and a guard were injured in the attack.

Lashkar Gah is near Marjah in Helmand province, the focus of a major Nato-led offensive against the Taliban.

Last Saturday, suicide bombers launched an assault on the city of Kandahar, in the neighbouring province, which left at least 35 people dead.

A Taliban spokesman said the attacks were in response to a planned major offensive by US and Nato forces against militants in the Kandahar province.

Gen. Lewis Mackenzie on NATO, Serbia, and Afghanistan.

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On March 9th 2010 the Free Thinking Films organization held a charity event to raise money for schools in Afghanistan. One of the speakers was Major General (retired) Lewis Mackenzie. Here is his opening statements on the issue of Canada’s involvement.

Much more to come on that evening. Here is General Mackenzie’s recommendations for Afghanistan:

Below, is an older clip of General Mackenzie on the issue of Kosovo, Serbia, and the U.N. April 4 2008

al-Shebab fashion police crack down on wardrobe malfunctions

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Get the look: Men’s fashion in Somalia never looked better. Fatigues look great paired with inexpensive tea towels and strands of bullets. Finish off the look with some stolen plastic cups, a bamboo cane, rifle and you’re set to go. For a sexy, sporty look, rub some sand around the eyes. For women, the modern look and ease of the burqa is a must-have in any well-styled wardrobe. They come in two fabulous colours, complimentary to any Muslim women’s skin tone, black and blue. Original designs provided by the House of Allah, brought to you by al-Shebab.

From The Telegraph U.K.

No splitting hairs with fundamentalist fashion police

Armed with assault rifles and scissors, the Shebab’s religious police are imposing a reign of terror – as well as crew cuts and bushy beards – on Somalia’s youth.

By Ali Musa Abdi, in Mogadishu for AFP
Published: 11:05AM GMT 23 Feb 2010
Get the look: the fundamentalist fashion police.

Get the look: the fundamentalist fashion police. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Wearing a T-shirt with a Western print, a pair of tight jeans and wavy gelled back hair, Ahmed Aydarus Abdi is a dedicated follower of fashion, but not the style advocated in the Shebab’s hardline Wahhabi brand of Islam.

“I was stopped by Shebab gunmen who asked me questions about my haircut. They said the way I designed my hair was very silly,” he said.

“Without waiting for my reply, one of the gunmen pulled out a pair of scissors and cut off huge locks on one side of my head. He was dealing with it like it was grass, not human hair,” Abdi said.

As he recounted how he reluctantly had to finish the job himself, the 19 year-old cast worried glances around him, aware that his appearance was likely to still be offensive to the canons of Shebab sartorial elegance.

His friends encouraged him to comply.

“If he had attempted to defend his right to wear his hair the way he chooses, he would have been lashed in public, so we restrained our friend,” 20-year-old Mohamoud Hassan said. Continue Reading →

The wannabe British jihadist who said no to Al-Qaeda

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This is now what the Brits are calling a success story.

Short version. The murder of innocents during 9/11 and 7-7 inspire a British Muslim to travel to Pakistan and join in the killing. Young Muslim gets wounded and realizes this is no game and I don’t want to play anymore. British media reports it as proof that jihadists can be de-radicalized.

TIMESONLINE… It took months to get to the man I must call “Kasim”. I’d heard about a wannabe British jihadist who had been injured in a US drone attack in Waziristan, Pakistan, but he was not easy to find, and, once found, he was clearly uneasy. With good reason. There are probably many people far scarier than me who would like to meet him.

We met in Blackpool on a filthy day, in the pouring rain, when the sky was as dark as the sea. I guessed he was in his mid-twenties. He wore a baseball cap pulled well down over his eyes as we walked between the great iron gantries of the pier and talked.

Like many young Muslims who embrace extreme Islam, Kasim — who was born in Britain — didn’t come from a deprived area or a poor family. His parents were middle-class Pakistanis. Kasim rebelled, dated girls, went clubbing, drank alcohol and smoked cannabis — but never told his parents. Had they known, they would probably have placed him under curfew.

Nonetheless, he was essentially a typical British teenager — until 9/11 changed everything. “It was the catalyst. It gave me the hunger to learn more about Islam,” he says. His journey to jihad began with sampling different mosques in search of the “peacefulness” he believed would guarantee his path to paradise. “I realised that there were 73 different sects in Islam — only one was going to paradise and the rest were going to hellfire.” Continue Reading →

Mumbai terror lawyer Shahid Azmi killed in ‘professional hit’

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 TIMESONLINE… A Muslim lawyer who was defending a man accused of planning the Mumbai terror attacks has been gunned down in a suspected underworld hit.

Shahid Azmi, 33, was representing Fahim Ansari, an Indian accused of carrying out reconnaissance work for the Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people in November 2008.

Mr Ansari is on trial in Mumbai alongside Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani national alleged to be one of ten Islamist militant gunmen who kept India’s commercial capital under virtual siege for 60 hours.

Mr Azmi, whose rise from convicted child terrorist to respected advocate had made him a Muslim hero, was shot four times in the chest and head on Thursday evening by four men at his home in the middle-class suburb of Kurla in Mumbai.

The attackers made their getaway in a diesel autorickshaw. Police suspect a professional hit.

The young lawyer, who grew up in a slum, had stood out among India’s legal fraternity. Aged 15, he was arrested for allegedly plotting to kill a right-wing Hindu leader in the wake of Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai.

He was found guilty of attending terrorist training camps in Kashmir and spent seven years in jail – time he used to study.

Before being acquitted by the Supreme Court he had shared a cell with Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Maulana Masood Azhar – two of the three terrorists who were released in exchange for hostages when an Indian Airlines flight was hijacked en route from Kathmandu to Delhi in 1999. Continue Reading →

Bombs and beatings: Life among the Taliban

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BBCNEWS… In Pakistan an account of life with the Taliban has emerged from a 13-year-old girl called Meena, who says her own family tried to turn her into a suicide bomber. There is no independent confirmation of her account but police say they believe she is telling the truth, and her information could be valuable. Meena told her story to our Pakistan correspondent Orla Guerin.

 VIDEO

My brother used to tell me that the place for a woman is either at home or in the grave. I was always restricted to home.

He said: “If you leave the house I’ll cut off your head and put it on your chest.”

My brother had been to the local school and beaten the girls and the teachers.

He said anyone who wanted to study was a friend of America.

I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted it so much that once I dreamt I was sitting in a hospital, working as a doctor. I wanted to help the poor, those who cannot afford medical fees.

Taliban commanders used to come to our house. There was an underground bunker beside the house, with electricity.

It was concrete and very strong. Cars would drive on top but no-one would realise what was underneath. In that hideout they used to train suicide bombers.

Most were children of my age or younger than me. They were used for these activities because they were too young to know any better.

Going to ‘paradise’

I used to see these children getting on a vehicle to go for their missions. They used loud Islamic CDs to motivate them.

And I would think, “My God, more Muslims are going to be buried”. Then the news would come that more Muslims were wiped out.

My brother used to prepare bombs and my sister-in-law did too. He told me that he would teach me this. I told him no. I would not even look at what they were doing.

My father and brother told me to carry out a suicide attack. They were pressuring me to do this.

They told me: “If you do it you will go to paradise long before us.” I replied: “Why don’t you tell me I will go to hell long before you?”

Every day they used to tell me this. Every day. I was very young when they started telling me this. I said to them: “What about all the people I will kill? They are all Muslims.”

They started beating me when I refused. They beat me non-stop. They made my life hell. I never had a single moment of happiness. They did everything other than kill me.

Bomber’s medicine

They said: “The bomb will be connected with a button, or something like the remote control of a TV. We will give you this kind of remote, and you will go to the place.

“We will also give you a mobile, and we will ring that phone, and press the remote, and you will be blown up with this bomb.” Continue Reading →