Taliban Behead 17 for Singing and Dancing
The Taliban beheaded 17 people, including two women, for attending a mixed-gender party where there was music and dancing, Afghan officials reported today.
The decapitated bodies were abandoned at a roadside in southern Afghanistan, according to Mullah Sharafuddin, the governor of Kajaki district in Helmand province.
All 17 bodies, including those of two women, were decapitated, but it was not clear if they had been shot first.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai denounced that killings as an "inhuman act and against all Islamic principals."
During Taliban rule, most types of music were made illegal, and anyone caught attending a mixed-gender party faced stiff punishment, including death in the most extreme cases.
NATO officials insist that the insurgency is waning, but today's gruesome discovery is a reminder that even after being ousted from power more than a decade ago, the Taliban are still firmly in control in some parts of the country.
Violence flared elsewhere in Afghanistan where two more American troops were killed when a rogue Afghan soldier opened fire Monday morning, the latest in a series of so-called "insider attacks" that have severely damaged the trust between coalition forces and their Afghan allies.
Monday's attack happened in Laghman province, in a river valley rife with Taliban activity. It's the same area where an ABC News crew was caught in a Taliban ambush in July.
According to NATO officials, the U.S. soldiers were part of a wheeled convoy travelling through the Alingar valley when one of their vehicles was hit by a roadside bomb. When the soldiers dismounted to investigate, there was an altercation between them and an Afghan soldier. The Afghan soldier then pulled his weapon and fired, killing two U.S. soldiers before he was killed by return gunfire.
With today's attacks, 12 American soldiers have been killed in the last month, all at the hands of their Afghan allies. This year, 42 coalition troops have been killed in insider attacks. The majority of them were American. The total surpasses the entire amount of insider attacks in 2011, when 35 coalition troops were killed by Afghan allies.
In response to this year's rash of attacks, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, has ordered all troops to carry armed weapons with them at all times – on base and off. Afghan officials have also promised to review their recruitment process, which has come under criticism for not vetting candidates properly before allowing them to enlist in Afghanistan's armed forces.
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Jump to unread Post a Commenthttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/27/taliban-execute-civilians-at-party
animals.....
Edited By: casparwhite on Aug 30, 2012 08:56
and these are the people who are going to be left in control of this country
lot of deaths in afghanistan..... do keep up
As long as the button is right next to him on the fence.
If only murder was illegal! :{
oh forgot just trolling.
Edited By: RAFAVDV on Aug 30, 2012 09:29
oh forgot just trolling.
...and one more bomb magnet out there will help this situation....how?
Regular followers are economically deprived and this often goes hand in hand with poorly educated.
Of course with the taliban they are using the whole religion thing to also keep the communities poor by suggesting that educating women is somehow a bad thing. That allows the mafia activities of the men to go largely unchallenged.
All mafia type organisations have some level of popular following as often the same communities have been allowed to descend into extreme poverty. They will make some aspects of life easier for the poor locals but at a price. If people stop thinking religion with regards to the taliban, and instead think mafia, it might be easier to put things into some sort of context
They enjoy killing each other in Saudi Arabia,Bahrain,Qatar,Iraq,Iran,Syria,Lebanon,Libya,Egypt,Bangladesh.Somalia and Pakistan.
Really need to sort themselves out and the West needs to stay out of it and let them sort it themselves.
To turn people away from the taliban they need to address the extreme poverty.
The whole religion/infidel thing plays well in poor and poorly educated communities. Change these two things and the hold will be lessened
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Regular followers are economically deprived and this often goes hand in hand with poorly educated.
Of course with the taliban they are using the whole religion thing to also keep the communities poor by suggesting that educating women is somehow a bad thing. That allows the mafia activities of the men to go largely unchallenged.
All mafia type organisations have some level of popular following as often the same communities have been allowed to descend into extreme poverty. They will make some aspects of life easier for the poor locals but at a price. If people stop thinking religion with regards to the taliban, and instead think mafia, it might be easier to put things into some sort of context
To turn people away from the taliban they need to address the extreme poverty.
The whole religion/infidel thing plays well in poor and poorly educated communities. Change these two things and the hold will be lessened
Both of these posts seem to be going out of their way to separate Islam from the Taliban.
Is it not possible that Islam is actually what enables/begets the Taliban in the first place?
Same as most other societies I guess
Western countries take in asylum seekers/refugees from countries where these atrocities are common place. This is the only thing we can realistically achieve, to take care of the few who escape and show them a better way of life.
We have already demonstrated our ability to kill indiscriminately, whilst hiding behind smoke screens such as supposedly removing WMD's.
We are also one of the Worlds great arms dealers, shown to have sold them to states with very unsavoury Governments.
I liken it to the ever growing divide between rich and poor.
The rich don't really care that much and are lead by their greed.
Those with power care with equal contempt and greed.
There always comes a point where more and more of those at the bottom of the ladder say enough is enough and strike back.
Whilst some of the methodology and reasoning can be just as dubious as that uses by those with power and might, it is inevitable that violence will be met with the same, even though what we hear about more is that from one side of the coin.
The side with the sensationalism geared towards increasing fear in a population in order to gain support and therefore retain the power and influence of those that are as guilty as those they claim to be fighting against, in the name of our protection and freedom.
The Taliban are funded from somewhere but is it from what we are told are the obvious places, or are we part of it?