The former fighter also complained of the unhygienic conditions in the war-torn lands of Pakistan's Waziristan province and Afghanistan that left him infected with hepatitis, and which were, in his opinion, "incompatible with the teachings of the Koran".
The unflattering portrayal of life in the Taliban came in a statement made by Thomas U. during his trial in Berlin for involvement in a foreign terrorist group.
The 27-year-old had travelled to Waziristan with his wife in the autumn of 2009 with the intention of freeing the area from the "infidel occupiers" after the couple had converted to Islam.
On encountering their Taliban recruiters they had to hand over £4,000 they had raised in Germany through fraud as a donation to a cause which promised to conquer the whole of Afghanistan in a year.
But Thomas U. soon became disheartened, especially after seeing the remains of three fellow Germans killed by Pakistani army shelling.
"The sight of their badly mangled bodies moved me," he said. "I was scared and I wanted to get out. Waziristan was not what I was looking for." Underlying his dislike of his new life was the Taliban propensity to use drugs, and their "macho" attitude to women. In one case a Taliban fighter went to the German widow of a dead comrade and told her that she would marry him. The proposal was made without any consultation with her, "as if she was just an object" said Thomas U. in his statement.
In September 2010 the couple fled Pakistan and made their way to Turkey, where they were arrested.
Thomas U., has since turned his back on radical Islam and lets his wife "dress anyway she wants".
"I regret leaving Germany and regret my crimes," he told the court.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/03/2012 21:08 Comments ||
Top||
#5
He is doing all those thinking of the romance of jihad a favour, by informing them of the horrid downside. Possibly some will listen and be dissuaded, and also some of their admirers across the spectrum.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
