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Taliban hang 7-year-old Afghan boy for ‘spying’
June is proving a deadly month in Afghanistan - for civilians and Nato troops
The news that Taliban fighters have hanged a seven-year-old boy in Helmand province, after accusing him of passing information to foreign soldiers, is the most graphic in a catalogue of horrors emanating from Afghanistan this month.
The casualties inflicted on Afghan civilians and Nato troops have led to a flurry of diplomatic activity, culminating in David Cameron's unannounced visit to Kabul this morning, where he told President Hamid Karzai that Afghanistan was his "number one priority".
The hanging took place on Tuesday in the Sangin district of Helmand, according to a statement from the provincial governor's office. The boy, who has not yet been named, was apparently abducted by Taliban fighters from the village of Heratyan and then hanged in another village, Salarwi.
The boy's murder - which the Taliban has denied - was followed yesterday by the killing of 39 people in a suicide bomb attack on a wedding party in the neighbouring province of Kandahar.
No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but Kandahar is a Taliban stronghold and is set to be the scene of a major Nato-led operation this summer. The "massive" bomb blast also injured more than 70 people, including the groom.
Far north in Sar-e-Pul province, there are fears - but, again, no proof - that the Taliban, who are opposed to female education, have launched a new offensive to scare girls from attending school. Twenty schoolgirls have been taken to hospital after falling ill - and it is suspected that they were poisoned. Several group poisonings have been reported in girls' schools this year.
For the military, June has also proved to be a deadly month. A total of 29 Nato troops have been killed since June 1, ten of them on Monday making it the deadliest day for the allied forces in seven months.
Yesterday a soldier from the 2nd Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment died in an explosion in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand - the fifth British death in Afghanistan this week. One of them was Lance Bombardier Mark Chandler, 32, of the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, who was killed in a gun battle in the Nad Ali on Tuesday.
Yesterday, four Americans died when their Nato helicopter was brought down by Taliban fire in Sangin.
Over the border in Pakistan, seven people died when insurgents attacked a convoy of 30 trucks carrying military equipment, such as Humvees, for use by Nato troops in Afghanistan. The trucks were set on fire on the main road from Islamabad to the Afghan border.
Against this backdrop of violence, Afghanistan's former intelligence chief said on Wednesday that President Hamid Karzai was pursuing a dangerous strategy in seeking peace with the Taliban because the insurgents are giving nothing in return.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Amrullah Saleh said the Taliban's response to Karzai's conciliatory approach has been "violence, destruction and intimidation." He added: "I am in favour of peace but I am against bowing to the Taliban."
Saleh, who was head of the National Directorate of Security, stood down on Sunday along with Interior Minister Hanif Atmar after Karzai said he held them responsible for failing to prevent a militant attack on last week's jirga - a meeting of lawmakers and tribal chiefs - in Kabul.
In London yesterday, the US defence secretary Robert Gates admitted that public opinion in Britain and America would no longer tolerate the loss of troops in Afghanistan unless there were signs of a strategic breakthrough by the end of the year.
"The public expects to see us moving in the right direction," he said. "One thing none of the public will tolerate is the perception of a stalemate where we are losing young men."
Also in London yesterday was Gen David Petraeus, commander of US operations in the Middle East. Piling pressure on Britain's new coalition government to stay the course in Afghanistan, he said the 10,000 British troops in the country were crucial to the Nato effort and that the UK-US alliance was at the core of efforts to fight extremism in the region.
"UK forces are, of course, in the thick of the fight in some of the toughest places in Afghanistan," said Petraeus, "while UK officers are serving in integral leadership roles throughout Isaf and its subordinate commands."
His comments came a day after the new defence secretary, Liam Fox, said British troops would stay until Afghanistan was "stable enough" to ensure internal and foreign security. But Fox said it was "highly unlikely" that Britain would move its Helmand force into Kandahar when Canada pulls out its contingent there next year. ·
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REPLY TO Mr Barry Cash (above): like the Soviets? No. They just occupied the country, wanted it for themselves, used helicopter gunships and tanks and anti-personnel mines on civilians and defenceless villages without let or hindrance. They believed in wiping out religion in the name of atheistic communist expansion, and the winning of a base further south and east to give their bombers flyover opportunity for the Persian Gulf. Then their stanglehold on world (and the US) oil supply could dramatically increase. Not same at all. See the film 'Charlie Wilson's War' and the book of the same name for further insights.
This article shows exactly what is so beautiful grand majestic merciful and benevolent bout this religion that wins so many lost souls over to follow
- Theo. Bennett-Canberra-AUSTRALIA
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Hell...! "eric legere", where are your references? What are your sources?
Is it arrogance for you to "remind" us not to bother with the reports from accredited and trained journalists on the ground who daily endure the same risks as civilians and soldiers in the appalling fundamentalist culture of Afghanistan...!
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But perhaps "eric" is right.
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Perhaps we should allow the Taliban benefit of the doubt this time. Maybe it shouldn't matter that they're known to have previously done this sort of thing - and worse, if anything could possibly be worse than brutally hanging a seven-year-old child by the neck until his vertebrae have snapped, his lungs stifled, and all life snuffed from his pitiable, innocent, body.
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Crikey, it's part of their quaint culture, a way of life some of the velvet social liberal mind manipulating PC conformists in the West actively promote as 'worthy'.
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France and Switzerland are so far a couple of the few western countries standing up against the lip service promotion of fundamentalist symbolism in its schools, but the rest of us seem content to go along with the burka and scarf wearing hypocrisy. Like the good citizens of Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the 'Emperor's New Clothes', we seem not ready to speak logically against the illogical for fear of nothing more than perhaps 'disagreeing' with our neighbour.
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Tragically, so many people who must live in a fundamentalist society dare not speak out either, but that's because of fear. Not political correctness and inane conformity.
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At best we stroke our own egos and consciences by telling one another that we're practicing 'multi cultural tolerance' by supporting, promoting, even empathising by applauding the public devolution of women in our own society with 'fashionable' curtains and drapes used to disguise gender and appearance.
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Even more ridiculous are the metropolitan petty bureaucrats who rally to complaints by fundamentalist immigrants that native-born locals use 'only' brief swimwear in public pools, on beaches, and short skirts, bare legs, playing netball and hockey.
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Surely, giving audience reception to any of this inherently supports regimes in the Muddled East, Africa and Asia that actively suppress basic human rights and stridently depress their own women, using among other symbols the very clothing that the velvet mob in the West want to promote.
We live in a safe Western culture of politically correct conformity where our concept of multi-cultural awareness is to help promote the wearing of veils and burkas in a country that stones teenage girls to death for the "sin" of romantic assignation, and kills its seven-year-old children for talking to a NATO soldier.
Is it significant that "eric" and others might question whether there's as yet no photograph or hard "evidence" of the horror reported here..?
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Yes it is.
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By his very use of the Internet to read an accountable on-line journal, "eric" implies that he might also indulge in the plethora of vast and unaccountable nonsense that's spewed out by the minute on the 'Net by the juvenile and addled "conspiracy theorists" who are neither on the ground in Afghanistan, nor have any journalistic training, experience and credibility.
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Check my comment here with the International Federation of Journalists in Brussels and Journalistes Sans Frontiers in Paris if you wish to test the "crucifixion wounds".
Worse are the otherwise privileged and polished people in Western capital endorsed societies who are daily campaigning for the "cultural freedom" of people in places like Afghanistan to be encouraged to perpetrate their illiterate, near Stone Age inhumane psychopathological practices.
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"eric", I'll throw down the gauntlet for you to list here your "so many examples" of "media misguidance". Do so, and I'll gladly source provide greater weight of balance provided by the millions of examples of speech freedom, enlightenment, and social justice advances our precious civilisation has experienced and enjoyed since Gutenberg and Caxton gave us the Press.
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Do not confuse accredited, accountable, mainstream Press with the appalling self-interest vexations of those ill-informed and opinionated of the bloggers who inhabit the Internet's netherworld.
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What I find most interesting is that the Taliban denied doing this, which is atypical for them, unless of course, they really did have nothing to do with it. So, if the story is based on an actual event, who would benefit by blaming the Taliban?
I'm not suggesting the Taliban are innocent (or guilty) I'm just reminding people not to accept reports as "gospel" when we have seen so many examples of the media misguiding the public.
Who still believes that half a platoon of half trained Arabs could simultaneously hijack four air planes and then knock over the steel framed Twin Towers? We know it takes tons of dynamite, not plane fuel, to demolish other buildings. I doubt a full SAS platoon could enact what we are supposed to believe without at least some government cooperation.
The answer is the politicians who are supporting the war in Afghanistan. Sad news for little boys who talk to soldiers. I can see two more on the Taliban short list at the head of this article.
Michael isn't what you propose rather like the approach the Soviets took? I seem to remember they had about 200,000 troops there for 10 years and I don't think they were known for their easygoing ways.
The hardline, fanatical, and barbaric nature of the Taliban has never been in doubt. They gave a home to the equally unpleasant Qaidas in the 1990s, and we got suicide bombs galore, including the mainly Saudi-inspired 9/11 Twin Towers shocker. What we should do is send in more troops, better armed, with better intel, and more shoot on sight orders. That would save a few 7-year old spies lives.