Last things first (found only in the Boston Globe):
"Taliban member says S. Korea paid ransom" by Saeed Ali Achakzai/Reuters September 1, 2007
SPIN BOLDAK (Reuters) - In a separate development yesterday, Afghanistan authorities said the US-led coalition and Afghan security forces killed about 70 suspected militants across the country, where violence is running at its highest level since the ouster of the Taliban regime six years ago.
The surge in miltant attacks comes despite the presence of more than 50,000 foreign troops and 110,000 Afghan police and military officers, as well as a multimillion dollar reconstruction effort to rebuild the shattered nation.
Late Friday, Afghan security forces and US-led troops raided compounds in three villages in the remote Pitigal Valley border region.
[Yeah, nothing like hiding MASS-MURDER in the last three paragraphs of the piece, then posting a Washington Post report on-line.
Nice job, Globe!!
Here is the top portion (presented as a Zionist organ would present the news.]
South Korea paid the Taliban more than $20 million to release 19 missionaries they were holding hostage in Afghanistan, a senior insurgent leader said on yesterday, vowing to use the funds to buy arms and mount suicide attacks.
[Yup, those Taliban gonna use the funds to DEFEND THEMSELVES!]
The South Korean government has denied paying a ransom and another Taliban spokesman speaking on the record said no money had changed hands to secure the Koreans' freedom.
The senior Taliban leader disagreed, who spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the group would use the money "purchase arms, get our communication network renewed and buy vehicles for carrying out more suicide attacks."
The commander is on the 10-man leadership council of the Islamist Taliban movement, which is led by the elusive Mullah Mohammad Omar and runs all of the insurgent group's affairs.
South Korea's Kyodo news rervice also reported the $20 million payment yesterday, quoting an unidentified Taliban commander who was interviewed by telephone. The official said the militants "will use this money to purchase military equipment to continue our fight against the invaders," Kyodo said.
"We deny any payment for the release of South Korean hostages," an official at the presidential Blue House in South Korea said yesterday.
Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a Taliban spokesman, later told Reuters no ransom was paid, saying it would discredit the group. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy."
[Yeah, discrepancies all over the place, huh?
That's what happens when lies are told!
Here is what the piece carried on-line:]
The senior Taliban leader told Reuters: "We got more than $20 million dollars from them (the Seoul government).... The money will also address to some extent the financial difficulties we have had," but he did not elaborate.
The Taliban leader rejected an Afghan government statement that a senior Taliban leader, Mullah Brother, was killed in a U.S.-led operation on Thursday in the southern province of Helmand: "This report is just propaganda."
Some of the freed hostages on Friday told of how they lived in constant fear for their lives and were split up into small groups and shuttled around the Afghan countryside to avoid detection. One Taliban member would tend to a farm by day and then grab a rifle and stand guard over hostages at night.
[Who the hell are these guys, these Taliban?
Here's the Post pick-up and its contribution]
"Kidnapped S. Koreans arrive back home; Seoul denies giving $20m for hostages" by Blaine Harden, Washington Post | September 2, 2007
SEOUL - "Afghan security forces and US-led troops raided compounds in three villages in the remote Pitigal Valley border region, where intelligence showed that top militant leaders take refuge as they travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The troops killed more than 20 insurgents and detained 11 others in the raids, which were just 3 miles from the border. They discovered a bomb-making factory and seized weapons and communication gear. One coalition solider was wounded in the raids."
[And how about those Afghan police?
Want to see how America and NATO is LOSING THIS WAR?]
"Afghan Police Are Set Back as Taliban Adapt" By DAVID ROHDE
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 26 — Over the past six weeks, the Taliban have driven government forces out of roughly half of a strategic area in southern Afghanistan that American and NATO officials declared a success story last fall in their campaign to clear out insurgents and make way for development programs, Afghan officials say.
A year after Canadian and American forces drove hundreds of Taliban fighters from the area, the Panjwai and Zhare districts southwest of Kandahar, the rebels are back and have adopted new tactics. Carrying out guerrilla attacks after NATO troops partly withdrew in July, they overran isolated police posts and are now operating in areas where they can mount attacks on Kandahar, the south’s largest city.
The setback is part of a bloody stalemate that has occurred between NATO troops and Taliban fighters across southern Afghanistan this summer. NATO and Afghan Army soldiers can push the Taliban out of rural areas, but the Afghan police are too weak to hold the territory after they withdraw. At the same time, the Taliban are unable to take large towns and have generally mounted fewer suicide bomb attacks in southern cities than they did last summer.
[Also, that is not part of the Taliban or Afghan culture, which raise a Prop 201 Stink for me!]
The Panjwai and Zhare districts, in particular, highlight the changing nature of the fight in the south. The military operation there in September 2006 was the largest conventional battle in the country since 2002. But this year, the Taliban are avoiding set battles with NATO and instead are attacking the police and stepping up their use of roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices or I.E.D.’s.
[That's another lie, since it has been reported that the Taliban did full-frontal on one forward operating base like three times last week.
Know I read or posted it somewhere, but I must be nuts, right?]
Brig. Gen. Guy Laroche, the commander of Canadian forces leading the NATO effort in Kandahar: “It’s very seldom that we have direct engagement with the Taliban. What they’re going to use is I.E.D.’s.”
The Taliban also wage intimidation campaigns against the population. Local officials report that one of the things that the insurgents do when they enter an area is to hang several local farmers, declaring them spies.
Hajji Agha Lalai, the leader of the Panjwai district council: “The first thing they do is show people how brutal they are. They were hanged from the trees. For several days, they hung there.”
[If that is really true, why is their support rising?
More propaganda bullshit for week-ender consumption!]
NATO and American military officials have declined to release exact Taliban attack statistics, and collecting accurate information is difficult.... The rising attacks are taking a heavy toll. At least 2,500 to 3,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence so far this year, a quarter of them civilians, according to the United Nations tally.
Yet the Taliban have been unable to take large towns this year and have carried out 102 suicide bombings, roughly the same number as last year, according to the United Nations. A conventional Taliban spring offensive was predicted by many but never materialized, and Western officials say that raids by NATO and American Special Operations forces have killed dozens of senior and midlevel Taliban commanders this year.
[Well, they told you it never materialized, but IT DID!!!
The MSM hid it from you, folks!!!]
Maj. Gen. Bernard S. Champoux, deputy commander for security for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said the Taliban’s leadership was in “disarray” and had not been able to carry out the attacks it had hoped this year and would be even weaker next year: “This has been a shaping year. I think next year will be a decisive year.”
[That's what NATO SAID LAST YEAR!!!! Good God!!!!]
The Panjwai police chief, Bismillah Jan, said Taliban attacks on the local police began intensifying four months ago. Deploying far more roadside bombs than last year, the Taliban have destroyed 11 police vehicles and killed several dozen policemen.
[Sounds like a SPRING OFFENSIVE to me.
Four months ago would be April/May? Pffffttttt!!!!]
In separate interviews, half a dozen tribal elders from Panjwai described the Taliban attacks on police posts and other new tactics. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from the insurgents.
After moving though the area in large groups last summer, the Taliban now operate in bands of no more than 20. Instead of sleeping in freshly dug bunkers and trenches, they sleep in mosques and houses, apparently to avoid NATO airstrikes, or, in the event of an attack, to increase the likelihood of civilian casualties, villagers said.
One elder said: “Last year, they had their own trenches and their own places. Now, they are very close to the houses and families. Their tactics changed.”
Another elder said: “They are very rude. First, they ask you for food. Then, they search you 20 times.”
[As opposed to the U.S. Special Forces, which kick down doors, ransack houses, and then haul of the men-folk to torture chambers in Afghanistan]
Officials in Helmand and Oruzgan Provinces described dynamics similar to those in Kandahar. Security improved somewhat in provincial capitals this summer, they said, but rural areas remain no man’s lands dominated by criminal gangs and the Taliban.
In Oruzgan, Dost Muhammad Dostiyar, the counternarcotics chief, said people were waiting to see if the government and Dutch forces could reassert themselves:
“One of the big reasons the people have distanced themselves from the government is that the government only has control of the capital. The rural areas are totally under the control of the militants.”
Afghan officials in all three southern provinces said the Taliban had evolved as a movement as well. Taking advantage of popular frustration with government corruption, the Taliban have broadened from a close-knit, ideologically driven movement to an amalgam of loosely affiliated groups fighting the government.
[Sounds like a popular resistance that is being lumped together as "Taliban," huh, reader?
HOW CONVENIENT!!!! CUI BONO, readers?]
Across the south, the term “Taliban” now encompasses a shifting array of tribes, groups, criminals, opportunists and people discontented with the government. In private, some Western officials say a political approach to more moderate insurgents is needed. Elders from Panjwai blamed the United States and President Hamid Karzai for not including more southern tribes in the government formed after the fall of the Taliban.
[Yes, TALK to THEM instead of KILLING people who NEVER DID ANYTHING TO US!!!]
One elder said: “When the Americans came, they didn’t contact the right people. They empowered two or three tribes and they pushed away others.”
[Yeah, well, America ALWAYS DOES THAT!]
Christopher Alexander, the deputy special representative for the United Nations in Afghanistan, said there was disorientation among insurgent groups. The Taliban have lost much of their senior leadership, he said, and other insurgent groups are not gaining popular support. At the same time, Pakistan is showing signs of cracking down on Taliban leaders there.
Alexander said all of these factors, present an opportunity for the Afghan government and NATO forces:
“The Taliban are vulnerable in many ways. Enormous achievements haven’t yet been made, but there has been progress.”
[Just what I love, a lying U.N. man!]
Oh, and here is what my local adds to the mix:
Afghanistan: "U.S., Afghans kill 70 suspected militants" by Chris Brummitt/Associated Press September 2, 2007
"Meanwhile, a bomb attached to a bicycle in a commercial district of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif wounded nine people, two seriously.
In the central province of Ghazni, Afghan police attacked a group of Taliban planning to strike security forces, killing 18 and arresting six others.
In the Musa Qala district in southern Helmand province, a combined police and coalition patrol came under attack on Friday from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.
In the fight that ensued, almost two dozen insurgents were killed. No Afghan or coalition soldiers, or civilians were killed, a coalition statement said.
Also in Musa Qala, Afghan forces yesterday called in coalition airstrikes after coming under attack. The strikes on the "known enemy positions" killed seven insurgents."
[Sad when locals are better than the nationals!
So how much more news are the Times and Globe hiding from the American people?]
