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Afghanistan
Freed Taliban vow to continue jihad
2004-02-01
Taliban fighters have vowed to continue their "holy war" against the American-led coalition in Afghanistan after they are freed from a notorious prison in the north of the country. Many of the 400 mostly Afghan prisoners to be released from Sheberghan jail, near Afghanistan’s Uzbek border, under an amnesty offered by the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, say that they intend to return to the fray against the West, according to prison officials and the word of the detainees.
Maybe next time they'll just get killed. It's like an infection, you know. You can't intern bacteria.
The disclosure of their plans coincided with a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul that killed a British soldier and injured four other people and came despite assurances from Mr Karzai that dangerous followers of the fundamentalist movement would not benefit from the amnesty. "God created me a Talib," declared Khal Mohammad, 55, an Afghan Taliban commander freed under the amnesty. "He [a Talib] is one who struggles for the happiness of Allah. This is the order of the Almighty Allah - to fight the infidel. It doesn’t matter if they are American, Russian or British."

Sheberghan Prison is a bleak fortress on a dusty plain and holds the third largest contingent of al-Qaeda-allied prisoners in the world, after Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Bagram airbase on the outskirts of Kabul. Most were taken there in December 2001 after the fall of the Taliban stronghold of Kunduz. President Karzai, under election year pressure from elders of his own Pathan [Pashtun] community, announced last month that the prisoners would be freed, despite the recent surge in Taliban-led resistance. In Kabul the prisoner offer is seen as a part of Mr Karzai’s attempts to counteract the Taliban comeback by making concessions to the movement’s less-extreme wings. "The time for making people suffer and jailing them without reason is over," said a spokesman for Mr Karzai. Those eligible for amnesty were ordinary Afghans who "have every right to a peaceful and respectable life in the new Afghanistan".
... which consists of rolling their eyes and waving guns."
The security manager of the jail, Fazal Hadi, is less sanguine. "Maybe some will not rejoin but I think most will come back," he said. "They belong to the fundamentalist groups and a lot are madrassa students, and I’m afraid that they will return."
I'm hoping they get killed next time.
The prisoners are highly adept at tailoring their views with an eye on gaining release, presenting one view to Mr Karzai’s envoys and the opposite to other visitors. Mr Hadi recounted: "A few Americans were here recently and after they had gone these Talibs called them imperialists, and said that if they were released they would come back and kill Americans."

Western diplomats in Afghanistan have warned Mr Karzai not to compound the task facing international troops in a misguided attempt to build bridges with opponents. "We acknowledge that this is an attempt to build bridges with footsoldiers in the ’moderate’ wing of the Taliban but we would oppose any process that results in the release of violent opposition that endangers international troops," one said.
A "moderate" Taliban only beats his own wife.
When the Telegraph visited Sheberghan, support for the Taliban was strong among the inmates. Young fighters chimed in with the elders, vowing to restore the puritanical movement that pulled the country back into the Middle Ages. Abdullah, a 26-year-old from the southern province of Zabul - a hotbed of Taliban resistance - declared that he wanted the Taliban returned to power, to restore the stability in everyday life which he said was missing since warlords took control. "In Taliban times it was stable," he said. "There was no fighting, and our homes were not looted." However, not all of the prisoners agreed and some admitted to being disillusioned with the Taliban after enduring years of hardship since signing up with the movement in northern Pakistan. Conditions at the jail have apparently sapped the fighting spirit of some prisoners, who now yearn to return to family life.

Sheberghan is a bleak place of incarceration for its 463 Pakistani and 437 Afghan inmates. It was substantially rebuilt in the 1980s by the Soviets, but its cells feature lice-infested beds and crumbling walls. Meals have improved following the intervention of the Red Cross Thingy, and prisoners now eat beef twice a week, rice every day and vegetables such as carrots and potatoes. Despite this, most have scabies, gastriotisis and sciatica and at least 47 have tuberculosis. Most Pakistani prisoners at Sheberghan have no imminent prospect of release. President Karzai said that the issue must be negotiated with Islamabad. Many Pakistani inmates claim to be angry at the Taliban for tricking them into travelling to Afghanistan to fight.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#9  A head shot is what these sub-humans need. Send them to "72-virgin-land" or wherever a "good muslim baby killing cockroach" goes when he dies.
Posted by: AKScott   2004-2-1 5:39:42 PM  

#8  Westerners, and those infected by our notions of honor and chivalry, need to learn the most basic lesson of international relations: they ain't us. What they do, and why, is not a mystery, if you're paying attention. The mystery in this situation, and many other similar dumbass moves, is why we trust asshats, such as the resplendent Karzai (Love the hat, Dood!), and keep thinking that Islam subscribes to the same code of honor. They don't. Period. Giving parole to an honorable (Western-style) man is usually good enough. Islam's notion of honor, a twisted mix of barbarity and honor-killing, makes this action just as stupid and insane and asinine as Israel's "prisoner swaps" with the Paleos. Total madness. Karzai knows better - so this, added to their "constitution", drops him another 50 rungs on my ladder. Fuck Karzai.
Posted by: ,com   2004-2-1 5:07:42 PM  

#7  I suggest a rereading of Patton's address (reenacted in the first scene of the "Patton" movie). "We will not content ourselves with shooting at the suckers, we are going to kick their asses, to make them crawl in shit and finally we will cut their balls". Or "we will use their guts for oiling the tracks of our tanks".


There are good muslims but it is time they stop thinking of wahabis and other scum as fellow muslims. They should regard them as a demon-inspired sect and don't hesitate to ally with kaffirs in order to hunt them. Because if they don't do this then it will be the wahabis who will kill them.


But for now, my impression of the moderate muslims is that they are trying to play us a game of good cop, bad cop. Or more exactly they are acting as the complce who feigns to be a hostage in order the cops hold their fire against the gangster.
I were them (the moderate muslims) I would understand that quite soon the westerners will ask for more than verbal comdemnations. And that looking the other way when people bear bin Laden's T-shirts or not burning wahabbi mosques is bad for economy. And for health.

Posted by: JFM   2004-2-1 3:47:39 PM  

#6  OP---I share your sentiments (sediments?), but the nitric acid thing is a bit vitriolic, ahem..

Unfortunately, the Islamic world looks at our willingness to compromise as a sign of weakness to be exploited. In our initial offer we must leave an out (a constructive alternative). However, if they do not take that, then they must realize that there is no negotiation, that they will be annihilated. For example, Israel, I believe, made a potential fatal mistake when they started negotiating with the PA after the start of the intefada.

These "nutjobs" give no quarter, so they should get none. I am afraid that the madrassa grads are a lost generation.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-2-1 1:07:56 PM  

#5  Seems to me we need a JDAM solution to the problem. Just have a total lockdown early one morning, have all the guards and workers leave, and level the damned place. Anyone that crawls out from the rubble will be summarily dumped into a vat of boiling nitric acid, feet first. End of problem.

You don't negotiate with terrorists. Islamofascism - perhaps all of islam - is a terrorost organization. Behead it, rip out the guts, chop off the limbs, and run over what's left with a steam roller. The only thing these nutjobs are good for is fertilizer. The sooner we decide that's the only solution that will work, the sooner we'll end up with a world the rest of us can live in in peace.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2004-2-1 12:31:54 PM  

#4  Karzai's fig leaf would be interpretted as weakness in the Arab world. The Pashtun world seems follows a war code that I cannot fathom based on tribal loyalties. He may have misunderstood the situation; I think that jihdis no longer recognize tribal loyalty.

In this situation I doubt that claering GITMO during the ongoing insurgency is a wise plan.

Posted by: Super Hose   2004-2-1 11:58:14 AM  

#3  Raptor-
Of course their promise would not be binding, all they have to do is claim that Karzai is not a true muslim because he is working with the kaffirs (us). This makes Karzai even worse than a polytheist to the Izzoids.

To the Izzies, the only true Muslim is one who works to slaughter all non-believers. With such rabid dogs (apologies to all real rabid dogs out there), claiming the "high moral ground" it is no wonder the hundreds of millions of "moderate" Muslims are cowed!

I fully agree- shoot all the rabid dogs, NOW!
Posted by: Craig   2004-2-1 10:55:48 AM  

#2  I wouldn't be suprised if one of those mutts tries to off Karzai when they get out. Lets hope he decides think a good old fashioned Soddy type prison fire is the solution to the problem.
Posted by: JerseyMike   2004-2-1 7:25:15 AM  

#1  " under an amnesty offered by the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, say that they intend to return to the fray against the West,"

Simple solution:summary execution.

I thought Karzi was a pretty smart dude,guess he hasn't learned you don't negotiate with rabid dogs,you shoot them.

We all know the Quran says it it is perimesable to lie,cheat,steal from Kafirs and to enslave or kill them.That a promise to a Kafir is not binding,if they give thier Word to Karzi(a Muslem)is that promise binding?
Posted by: Raptor   2004-2-1 6:28:55 AM  

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