"Something of a catchall term for loosely affiliated insurgents without a singular command structure. Often, the Afghan government favors the phrase 'enemies of the state' (New York Times July 24, 2007)."
Translation: Any resistance tio U.S. occupation and domination.
"Hundreds of inmates escape after Taliban attack Afghan prison" by Noor Khan, Associated Press | June 14, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants staged a brazen bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan late yesterday, blowing down the gate and helping hundreds of suspected insurgents flee, officials said. Many police officers were reported killed.
The complex attack included a truck bombing at the main gate, a suicide bomber who struck a back wall, and rockets fired from outside, setting off a series of explosions that rattled Kandahar, the country's second biggest city.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked Sarposa Prison and freed about 400 Taliban members.
Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai who is president of Kandahar's provincial council, said the prison held about 350 suspected Taliban fighters, among a total of more than 1,000 prisoners.
Abdul Qabir, chief of the Sarposa Prison, confirmed that hundreds of prisoners escaped, but did not provide an exact figure. He said some inmates stayed at the jail, which held criminals as well as alleged insurgents....
I thought we were winning?
Qabir, the prison warden, said the assault began when a tanker truck full of explosives detonated at the prison's main entrance, wrecking the gate and a police post, killing all the officers inside. He couldn't say how many police were killed.
Shortly after that, a suicide bomber on foot blasted a hole in the back of the prison, Qabir said.
Witnesses reported that rockets were also fired at the prison during a 30-minute battle that began about 9:30 p.m.
A shopkeeper who sells vegetables near the prison, Mohammad Hiqmatullah, said he saw prisoners run out and disappear into nearby pomegranate and grape groves.
Ahmadi, the Taliban spokesman, said militants had been planning the assault for two months. "Today we succeeded," he said, adding that the escaped prisoners were "going to their homes."
Officials with NATO's International Security Assistance Force said they were aware of the attack but didn't yet have any details.
Last month, some 200 Taliban suspects at the prison ended a weeklong hunger strike after a parliamentary delegation promised that their cases would be reviewed.
Earlier yesterday, the separate US-led military coalition said airstrikes were called in to support ground troops fighting insurgents in two Afghan provinces Thursday, killing more than 17 militants and a female civilian.I'm tired of the U.S.' mass-murder, bloodshed and death being relegated to an, "oh, yeah," paragraph, readers.
Bet if they were Israeli it would be first paragraph stuff with endless repetitions.
The prison attack came just a few hours after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told his counterparts in Europe that NATO members need to bolster their military effort in Afghanistan, where violence has been escalating.
I thought we were winning?
How come my Zionist War Dailies rarely give me stories then?
Gates said that for the first time, American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan in May had exceeded the monthly toll in Iraq since the US-led invasion of Iraq.
By the Pentagon's count, 15 US and two allied troops were killed in action in Iraq last month, a total of 17. In Afghanistan it was 19, including 14 Americans and five coalition troops.
Oh, great, so NOW Afghanistan is WORSE than Iraq, huh?
Gates used the monthly reports on deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq to dramatize his point to NATO defense ministers that they need to do more to get Afghanistan moving in a better direction."
Pffftttt!
Translation: Clean up the U.S. mess!
Fuck you, Gates.
BRING THEM HOME and LEAVE THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE ALONE!!!!
Also see:
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/The First Abu Ghraib
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Perversion
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Dilawar and Habibullah
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Chamber of Horrors
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/American Amnesty
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Bagram
Afghanistan Torture Chamber
Memory Hole: Camp Nama and Task Force 6-26
Occupation Iraq: New Torture Techniques Revealed
Inside Bagram Prison
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