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| Afghanistan |
| 80 Taliban lay down weapons, join Afghan police |
| 2009-11-21 |
| TALIBAN militants have laid down their weapons and joined Afghanistan's police force, accepting a government amnesty aimed at ending a vicious insurgency. In a ceremony at police headquarters in the eastern city of Herat, the 80 men handed over their weapons and pledged to end their fight against the government, Herat police chief Asmatullah Alizai said. "Negotiations have been going on with their commander Solaiman as we have been trying to absorb him into the government," he said, referring to Mula Solaiman, a former border guard commander who changed sides a number of times. The decision by the 80 insurgents comes after President Hamid Karzai again offered an olive branch to Taliban fighters to reintegrate into Afghan society. In a speech marking his inauguration on Thursday for a second five-year term, Mr Karzai pledged to call a "loya jirga", or inclusive national conference of political, tribal and religious leaders, to work towards peace. The Taliban insurgency has intensified since the Islamist regime was pushed from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001, with more than 100,000 foreign troops fighting the militants under US and NATO command. add news.com.au to iGoogle So far 8340 Taliban have accepted the amnesty since Mr Karzai established the Independent Reconciliation Council in 2005, a council official said. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 I think this kind of thing is largely hard-wired. It may be why the postwar-peace with Germany, Italy and Japan was relatively calm (and why the defeated WWII nations are pacifist to a fault). Literally millions of high-testosterone fighting men had been wiped out. I have often thought there were parallels to Larry Niven's "Known Space" novels with regards to the Puppeters' strategy to create a more reasonable Kzinti species. Hard on humans though. |
| Posted by: Cromert 2009-11-21 19:32 |
| #5 Sunni tribals have been doing this kind of thing for 1-1/2 years now. I think the surge in Iraq worked because the tribes were exhausted. The reason we were able to work on protecting the population was because the population wanted to be protected - the alpha males among them who were interested in holy war had been mostly killed off, and al Qaeda was pushing on a string in trying to get the remaining zero-testosterone non-warrior types to fight Uncle Sam. We will eventually get to that point with the Taliban. In fact, I suspect that we will get to that point (in terms of dead Taliban) relatively soon. Fighting on Afghanistan's rugged terrain is hard for our troops. It's way harder for the Taliban, since they can't get air-dropped supplies, and their supply convoys are subject to continual air attack. A huge number of A-type Afghan personalities were wiped out during the Soviet occupation. We are fighting the dregs. I think this kind of thing is largely hard-wired. It may be why the postwar-peace with Germany, Italy and Japan was relatively calm (and why the defeated WWII nations are pacifist to a fault). Literally millions of high-testosterone fighting men had been wiped out. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2009-11-21 19:09 |
| #4 I'd be giving them airsoft rifles for awhile.... |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2009-11-21 16:27 |
| #3 It's seasonal thing---Taliban in summer, police in winter. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-11-21 16:18 |
| #2 80 Taliban lay down their |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-11-21 15:31 |
| #1 Yeah. That's who I want checking my six. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2009-11-21 15:02 |