Tag Archives | Taliban

Taliban Accidentally Reveals Entire Email List

By majestic on November 18, 2012 in News 9

RAWA (CC)

Surely everyone who uses email has copied someone by mistake before, but rarely does it rise the level of monumental gaffe that a Taliban spokesman committed this week. ABC Newsreports:

Somewhere out there, Mullah Omar must be shaking his head.

In a Dilbert-esque faux pax, a Taliban spokesperson sent out a routine email last week with one notable difference.He publicly CC’d the names of everyone on his mailing list.

The names were disclosed in an email by Qari Yousuf Ahmedi, an official Taliban spokesperson, on Saturday. The email was a press release he received from the account of Zabihullah Mujahid, another Taliban spokesperson. Ahmedi then forwarded Mujahid’s email to the full Taliban mailing list, but rather than using the BCC function, or blind carbon copy which keeps email addresses private, Ahmedi made the addresses public.

“Taliban have included all 4 of my email addresses on the leaked distribution list,” tweeted journalist Mustafa Kazemi, a prolific Kabul-based tweeter with more than 9,500 followers.

… Read the rest

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Federal Magistrate Rules Against Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Iran in 9/11 Civil Case

By Disinformation on August 1, 2012 in News 7

Via CBS News:

Federal Magistrate Frank Maas has recommended that Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Iran be held liable for six billion dollars in a 2011 civil suit brought against them by relatives of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The assessment is symbolic in nature, as it will be impossible to collect damages. Still, at least some of the plaintiffs are pleased with the results:

Plaintiff Ellen Saracini … is happy about Manhattan Federal Magistrate Judge Frank Maas’ recommendation Monday. Her husband, Victor, was the captain of one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center.

Read the entire story at CBS News.… Read the rest

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On Patrol With The Afghan National Police

By Joseph Kassabian on April 4, 2012 in News 7

Kandahar, Afghanistan—High centered, surrounded on both sides by open air sewage ditches is a dusty Afghan Police Checkpoint. I mean ‘checkpoint’ only in the loosest of terms, as the Afghans put it together. A few sand bags here and there with a bright pink lawn chair in the center, the police stand totally unprotected.

If they ever did their job that is.

My squad’s patrol crawls by under the hot Kandahar sun, when they see us the Police jump up off their flamboyantly colored lawn chair and start searching random fields and anyone who is misfortunate enough to be close by. Their checkpoint commander rushes out and tries to look as professional as his ill-fitting uniform and bare feet allow him to look.

“Hello!” he calls out, trying to act like we are disturbing his work. Our interpreter walks over to him and starts small talk while the tired, sun burned soldiers spread out along nearby builds and canals to set up sectors of fire.… Read the rest

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Who Did Give the Green Light to Torture?

By Good German on January 18, 2012 in News 9

Paul Vallely writes at the Independent:

There has been something artificially over-heated about the international reaction to the video of four American soldiers urinating on the bodies of their dead Taliban enemies in Afghanistan. It was, of course, a fairly disgusting thing to do.

But all the breastbeating about how the men’s “egregious inhumanity” had brought “disgrace to their armed forces” and “dishonour to their nation” had something of bluster about it. How could anybody do such a thing, asked people who had never been to war, heard their wounded friends scream or seen them die, blown to pieces, before their very eyes.

There may yet be demonstrations and deadly riots around the world in protest. But I suspect not. This is no Abu Ghraib, for the scenes of degraded torture in that Iraqi prison were inflicted upon the living rather than the dead. But what the two have in common is that both have exposed a systematic pattern of abuse in a culture which had been nurtured or authorised at higher levels.

… Read the rest

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U.S. Has Provided $360 Million To Taliban To Fight U.S.

By JacobSloan on August 24, 2011 in News 19

Granted, Afghanistan is very corrupt, and $360 million that flowed to criminals and the Taliban is a mere one percent out of the total reconstruction contracts reviewed. Also, consider this a marked improvement from our 1980s policy of giving billions of dollars to Afghanistan’s jihadist forces on purpose. Via Washington Post:

After examining hundreds of combat support and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, the U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade battling: the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both. The losses underscore the challenges the U.S. and its international partners face in overcoming corruption in Afghanistan.

… Read the rest

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Should We Say “Maybe” to Drugs in Afghanistan?

By moezilla on July 16, 2011 in News 15

There’s a global morphine shortage in the west (while the Taliban is financing terrorism through black-market opium). So for over a year, a mainstream journalist for both Information Week and Library Journal has been contacting Congressmen about the “Sustainable Opportunities for Rural Afghans Act.” (“Whereas granting rural Afghan farming families an economic ally other than the Taliban is good for the national security of the United States…”)

Basically, the act would allow American pharmaceutical companies to buy opium from the farmers in Afghanistan — and even offer aid and bonuses to the farmers to deter their cooperation with the Taliban (before eventually transitioning them to other crops). “Action has been nil and talk has been quiet,” the reporter writes, even though it could help efforts to “defeat, disrupt, and dismantle” al Qaeda and its allies.

“As we press our advantage after the death of bin Laden, it seems reasonable to use every available tool toward our stated goal.”… Read the rest

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The Terror Chess Set: Taliban And World Trade Center Included

By Pelliciari on June 21, 2011 in News 3

chess How terrorist attacks have become a game. The Telegraph reports:

The Terror Chess sets feature hand-painted Taliban militants with a woman in a burka as the queen.

In the British set, the king is Tony Blair and the queen is the Queen, while the rook is Big Ben.

Jeffrey Train, a 48-year-old former Canadian soldier who designed the figures, said he had sold around 1,500 sets, mainly as souvenirs to troops serving in the 140,000-strong international coalition in Afghanistan.

In the American set they are replaced by Barack Obama, the Statue of Liberty and the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

Ranged against the insurgents are soldiers from a choice of coalition countries including American, Canada and Britain.

[Continues at The Telegraph]… Read the rest

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The Taliban Joins Twitter

By JacobSloan on May 16, 2011 in News 0

Military maneuvering in the 21st century means the Pentagon and Islamicist rebels responding to one another’s tweets, apparently. If this is a hoax, it has fooled the Guardian, among others:

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they eschewed most modern technology, including television and music players. But in the latest sign of the hardline movement’s rapprochement with at least some areas of the modern world, the Taliban have embraced microblogging.

Their Twitter feed, @alemarahweb, pumps out several messages a day, keeping 993 followers up to date with often highly exaggerated reports of strikes against the “infidel forces” and the “Karzai puppet regime”. Most messages are in Pashtu, with links to news stories on the elaborate and multilingual website of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban’s shadow government likes to style itself.

Today, the feed broke into English for the first time, with a tweet about an attack on police in Farah province: “Enemy attacked in Khak-e-Safid, 6 dead.”

There is not much lively banter between the “emirate” and its Twitter followers, save for a cheerful “asalam alekum” sent last week to the Kavkaz Centre, a militant news site covering jihad in the Caucasus.

… Read the rest

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Jihadis Voice Grief and Determination at Death of Their Inspiration

By BananaFamine on May 3, 2011 in News 3

Cover Of Osama Bin Laden's Book.

Robert F. Worth writes in the New York Times:

Jihadis around the world reacted on Monday to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death with a mix of sorrow, disbelief and determination that Al Qaeda and its affiliates would continue their struggle against the West and its allies.

Although the group’s leaders have not yet issued any formal statements on the subject, jihadis vented their feelings throughout the day in Internet forums, gatherings, and interviews throughout the Arab and Muslim world and beyond.

“It is a sad moment and also a happy moment,” said Omar Bakri Muhammad, a radical religious leader who was exiled from Britain and spoke by telephone from Lebanon. “Sad because the ummah was in need of such a charismatic leader. Happy moment because, he died as a martyr, he was not humiliated and fought until the last moment.”

Some jihadis expressed doubt that Bin Laden was dead, citing what they called doctored photographs that shot around the Web on Monday.

… Read the rest

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Taliban Announces Spring Offensive In Afghanistan

By BananaFamine on May 1, 2011 in News 18

Trying to keep the shareholders happy for Q3? Especially noteworthy following last week’s jailbreak where over 400 insurgents escaped. BBC News reports:

The Taliban have announced the start of a spring offensive across Afghanistan.

In a statement, the group said the fighting would start on Sunday, targeting foreign troops as well as Afghan security forces and officials.

It warned civilians to stay away from public gatherings, military bases, government buildings and convoys.

Meanwhile initial findings from a Nato inquiry into a deadly attack at Kabul airport on Wednesday suggest the gunman was not connected to the Taliban.

The man, an Afghan pilot, killed eight US troops and a contractor. He was later found dead.

The Taliban claimed the attack, but the coalition said there was no evidence for this and the gunman appeared to have acted alone.

Saturday’s statement by the Taliban said the group would attack “foreign invading forces, members of their spy networks and other spies, high-ranking officials of the Kabul puppet administration”.

… Read the rest

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