Posted by
on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 8:24:31 PM
Busy, busy day around the house today, so I'll try to pound this out quickly ....
Some new War on Terror news coming out of the Middle East, and we start with Captain Ed picking up a story regarding "ransoms" for hostages that was reported by The Guardian today. It looks at though Karzai in Afghanistan was willing to negotiate with the Taliban. Not a smart move:
The Afghan government admitted yesterday it had struck a deal with Taliban kidnappers to secure the freedom of an Italian hostage. An Italian aid agency said Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a journalist with La Repubblica newspaper, was freed only after five Taliban militants had been released from prison.
President Hamid Karzai's spokesmen admitted a deal had been made but refused to elaborate.
Mr Mastrogiacomo, 52, survived a harrowing two weeks of captivity during which he was marched between desert hideouts and forced to watch the execution of his driver.
"This is the most wonderful moment of my life," the Italian said after reaching safety at an Italian-run hospital in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, on Monday.
But yesterday uncomfortable questions loomed about the price paid for Mastrogiacomo's liberation.
Gina Strada head of the Italian non-governmental organisation Emergency, which runs a hospital in Lashkar Gah, told La Stampa that President Karzai had authorised the release despite protests in his own government.
"The Afghan government was not a big help," she said. "[The Italian ambassador] spent hours and hours fighting with ministers and Afghan officials who refused to carry out Karzai's orders."
Karim Rahimi, an Afghan government spokesman, admitted "some demands" had been met but refused to specify how many prisoners had been freed. "This was an exceptional case and it will never happen again," he said.Never again, huh? We've heard that before, and I'd like to think that the Karzai government means it, but I sincerely doubt that's true. The thing the Afghanis better get through their thick skulls right now is that you can't negotiate with terrorists, no matter who's life is at stake, because the ransoms will simply get larger. Instead of five Taliban prisoners, the next time it'll be ten or twenty in exchange for one life. Worse yet, what happens if the Taliban utilizes a strategy similar to this story about Susan Osthoff that Marcie picked up back in January of last year on our old site. Ms. Osthoff was released from her captors after Germany paid a ransom, but she was found to have poart of the ransom on her person when she arrived at the embassy. In other words, what if the Taliban "pretends" to abduct someone, and uses that person to obtain their ransom? Could be a distinct possibility, and I wouldn't put it past them to try such a tactic. Regardless, it wasn't the most intelligent deal to striek with the tiger, and I do hope they learned their lesson. If not, then the efforts in Afghanistan are in deep trouble.
Our second story comes from a BBC report that Colonel Austin Bay noticed today:
At least 100 people have been killed in three days of clashes between local and foreign militants in Pakistan, Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao has said.
Mr Sherpao told the BBC that dozens more had been wounded in heavy fighting near Wana in the South Waziristan tribal area close to the Afghan border.
Officials say that most of those killed since Monday were Uzbek fighters with suspected al-Qaeda links.
Local sources say troops have been sent in. The military denies this.
Hundreds of foreign militants fled to the tribal areas after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.Not a big deal, right. Think nothing of it; whoopty-doo; who cares? Now, let's take another look at the same story, but from a different source of news:In the Pakistani region of South Waziristan, fierce fighting between pro-Taliban tribesmen and Al-Qaeda-linked Uzbek militants has left at least 58 dead.
The Pakistani newspaper DAWN writes that fighting broke out Monday near the town of Wana, sparked by last week's murder of an Arab reportedly linked to Al Qaeda.
This puts an interesting twist to the story. Taliban fighters engaged with al Qaeda linked fighters. Could anything be more like poetic justice? We often joke about the Democrats eating their young when they take issue with one another, and it appears that such a tactic isn't just reserved for them. It looks like even our enemies are subject to killing one another. Things look a lot beter in Pakistan if they're killing each other. Let them do it. We'll clean up what's left when they're done shooting at each other.
Publius II