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  • Jail Break - Afghan Style

    KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Hundreds of pro-Taliban militants spilled freely into the streets of Kandahar city after a brazen insurgent attack Friday night blew down the walls of a prison involved in Canada's detainee scandal.

    A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the multi-pronged assault that saw Sarposa prison pounded with an explosives-laden tanker truck, rockets and suicide bombers.

    Canadian troops rushed across town from their base at Kandahar Airfield to secure the area around the prison, where the inmate population included insurgents captured by NATO soldiers.

    "We have troops on the scene right now," Canadian military spokesman Maj. Jay Janzen told reporters at Kandahar Airfield, the main NATO base in the region.

    "We have established a security perimeter in the vicinity of the prison."

    Just months ago, the Canadian government resumed prisoner-transfers after suspending them because of documented detainee abuse by Afghan officials.

    Inmates at Sarposa described having been whipped, choked, and electrocuted in separate detention facilities run by Afghanistan's feared intelligence police.

    The facility is now said to be virtually empty after the attack, and international forces suddenly found themselves scouring the area for inmates they had captured earlier.

    Early Saturday, police official Mohammad Jamal Khan said more than 600 prisoners escaped. He said nine police were killed in the attack and that 12 were wounded. Eight prisoners were also killed during the assault, he said. More than 30 nearby shops were damaged.

    The Taliban said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked the prison, used to hold both common criminals and Taliban militants.

    Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press that militants had been planning the assault for the last two month "to release our Taliban friends."

    "Today we succeeded," he said. The escaped prisoners "are safe in town and they are going to their homes."

    It is a deep blow to the international coalition which has been engaged in fierce battles with insurgents in the chaotic rural areas of Kandahar province.

    While Canadian soldiers have been engaged in frequent firefights in the outlying areas, Kandahar city had been considered a relatively safe haven. It was unclear how many of the escaped prisoners had taken refuge in the city and how many had fled to surrounding areas.

    The attack raised another question for NATO: with Sarposa now in partial ruins, what will Canada and other countries do with the insurgents they capture?

    Around the time of the attack, Kandahar Airfield was abuzz with the cheers of European soldiers taking in their continent's soccer championship on giant-screen TVs around the base.

    The revelry quickly gave way to the whir of helicopters swirling overhead and tanks rumbling into the city.

    Troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, are working with Afghan government forces to deal with the attack. Canada has about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan as part of ISAF.

    Janzen could not say how many insurgents were on the loose.

    However, both the Taliban and Afghan officials declared hundreds of inmates had escaped and several police officers had been killed.

    The attack began when a tanker truck full of explosives detonated at the jail's main gate, said Abdul Qabir, the prison chief. Shortly after that, a suicide bomber on foot blasted a hole in the back of the prison.

    Qabir said some prisoners stayed behind while hundreds of others escaped. However, Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai and the president of Kandahar's provincial council, said all prisoners had escaped. Neither official provided an exact figure.

    "There is no one left," Karzai said.

    Kandahar residents said loud booms rattled the city for some 30 minutes starting around 9:30 p.m. Rocket fire lasted into early Saturday.

    The tanker explosion wiped out the main gate and an outpost full of police, killing all of them, Qabir said. He couldn't say how many police officers were killed.

    Last month, some 200 Taliban suspects held at the Kandahar prison ended a weeklong hunger strike after a parliamentary delegation promised their cases would be reviewed.

    Legislator Habibullah Jan said some of the hunger strikers had been held without trial for more than two years. Others were given lengthy prison sentences after short trials.

    Jan said 47 of the prisoners had stitched their mouths shut during the hunger strike in May.


    "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
    "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

  • #2
    The main problem is that the average mid-eastern is too ***** to stand up and be counted. They'd rather roll the dice and gamble on not being slaughtered.
    Like that's been a winning bet.
    Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
    "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
    He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

    Comment


    • #3
      The number is up to 870. We can take comfort however. Apparently only some 400 are hard core fighters.

      KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed more than 15 insurgents during a hunt for inmates who fled prison after a sophisticated Taliban attack that set hundreds free, while Afghan forces recaptured 20 prisoners, officials said Sunday.

      The U.S. said it couldn't immediately confirm that any of the 15 killed were escaped prisoners. Five militants were also captured during the Saturday operation, it said.

      The provincial police chief of Kandahar province has said 870 prisoners - including some 400 Taliban militants - escaped from the Kandahar prison during a coordinated assault on the facility by dozens of insurgents late Friday.

      The chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, said Sunday that Afghan police and army soldiers have recaptured 20 prisoners, including seven former Taliban inmates.

      The coalition said the 15 insurgents it killed were in a farming compound in Kandahar province and that the combined forces used air strikes to destroy it after insurgents fired at them.

      NATO has said the prison break was a tactical success for the Taliban but would not have a long-term or large impact on the Afghan conflict. However, Afghan officials have warned that dangerous members of the militia are now free, and that the prison attack essentially boosted the insurgents' ranks by 400.

      In neighboring Helmand province, meanwhile, the U.S. coalition said "several" militants were killed during an operation targeting a Taliban weapons smuggler in Garmser, where hundreds of U.S. Marines have been operating the last two months.

      Militants in a compound fired on the coalition forces, who responded with gunfire and air strikes, the coalition statement said. Troops found several weapons and 250 pounds of narcotics during a search after the fight. Garmser is filled with opium poppy fields and is a major narcotics trafficking point.

      Also in Helmand, a roadside bomb killed the district police chief of Nad Ali, said Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the provincial police chief. The Nad Ali district chief was wounded in the attack, he said.

      Andiwal said the road where the explosion happened is usually patrolled by NATO and Afghan forces.

      Afghanistan has seen escalating violence the last two years from roadside bombs and suicide bombers. The country now has a record number of international troops - some 65,000, including approximately 2,500 Canadian soldiers. More than 1,800 people have been killed in violence this year, according to an Associated Press count.


      "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
      "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

      Comment


      • #4
        Meanwhile, our stooge Karzai threatens to attack Pakistan.

        KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened Sunday to send Afghan troops across the border to fight militants in Pakistan, a forceful warning to insurgents and the Pakistani government that his country is fed up with cross-border attacks.

        Karzai said Afghanistan has the right to self defense, and because militants cross over from Pakistan "to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to do the same."

        Speaking at a Sunday news conference, Karzai warned Pakistan-based Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud that Afghan forces would target him on his home turf. He is suspected in last year's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

        "Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house," Karzai said.

        "And the other fellow, (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar of Pakistan should know the same," Karzai continued. "This is a two-way road in this case, and Afghans are good at the two-way road journey. We will complete the journey and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years."

        Neither government officials nor a spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan could immediately be reached for comment.


        Karzai has long pleaded for Pakistan and international forces to confront militants in Pakistan, but has never before said he would send Afghan troops across the border.

        U.S. officials have increased their warnings in recent weeks that the Afghan conflict will drag on for years unless militant safe havens in Pakistan are taken out. Military officials say counterinsurgency campaigns are extremely difficult to win when militants have safe areas where they can train, recruit and stockpile supplies.

        Karzai said in recent fighting in the Garmser district of Helmand province - where hundreds of U.S. Marines have been battling insurgents the last two months - that most of the fighters came from Pakistan.

        His comments come as Pakistan is seeking peace deals with militants in its borders, including with Mehsud.

        The deals have come under criticism from U.S. officials, who warn they will simply give militants time to regroup and intensify attacks inside Afghanistan. But Pakistan insists it's not negotiating with "terrorists," rather militants willing to lay down their arms.

        Of particular concern is whether the deals will address militant activity inside Afghanistan.

        Mehsud, who is based mainly in the South Waziristan tribal area, has said he would continue to send fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan even as he seeks peace with Pakistan.

        U.S. and NATO commanders say that following the peace agreements this spring, attacks have risen in the eastern area of Afghanistan along the border.


        "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
        "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

        Comment


        • #5
          An OP on widening the war.



          The killing of 11 Pakistani soldiers by U.S. air and artillery strikes last week shows just how quickly the American-led war in Afghanistan is spreading into neighbouring Pakistan.

          Pakistan's military branded the air attack "unprovoked and cowardly." There was outrage across Pakistan. However, the unstable government in Islamabad, which depends on large infusions of U.S. aid, later softened its protests.

          The U.S., which used a B-1 heavy bomber and F-15 strike aircraft in the attacks, called its action, "self-defence."

          This latest U.S. attack on Pakistan could not come at a worse time. Supreme Court justices ousted by the Pervez Musharraf dictatorship staged national protests this week, underscoring the illegality of Musharraf's continuing presidency and its unseemly support by the U.S., Britain, Canada and France. Asif Zardari, head of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, shamefully joined Musharraf in opposing restoration of the justice system out of fear the reinstated judges would reopen long-festering corruption charges against him

          Click here to find out more!

          Attacks by U.S. aircraft, Predator hunter-killer drones, U.S. Special Forces and CIA teams have been rising steadily inside Pakistan's autonomous Pashtun tribal area known by the acronym, FATA. The Pashtun, who make up half Afghanistan's population and 15% of Pakistan's, straddle the border, which they reject as a leftover of Imperial Britain's divide and rule policies.

          Instead of intimidating the pro-Taliban Pakistani Pashtun, U.S. air and artillery strikes have ignited a firestorm of anti-western fury among FATA's warlike tribesmen and increased their support for the Taliban.

          The U.S. is emulating Britain's colonial divide and rule tactics by offering up to $500,000 to local Pashtun tribal leaders to get them to fight pro-Taliban elements, causing more chaos in the already turbulent region, and stoking tribal rivalries. The U.S. is using this same tactic in Iraq and Afghanistan.

          This week's deadly U.S. attacks again illustrate the fact that the 60,000 U.S. and NATO ground troops in Afghanistan are incapable of holding off the Taliban and its allies, even though the Afghan resistance has nothing but small arms to battle the West's hi-tech arsenal. U.S. air power is almost always called in when there are clashes.

          In fact, the main function for U.S. and NATO infantries is to draw the Taliban into battle so the Afghan "mujahidin" can be bombed from the air. Without 24/7 U.S. airpower, which can respond in minutes, western forces in Afghanistan would be quickly isolated, cut off from supplies, and defeated.

          But these air strikes, as we saw this week, are blunt instruments in spite of all the remarkable skill of the U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots. They kill more civilians than Taliban fighters. Mighty U.S. B-1 bombers are not going to win the hearts and minds of Afghans. Each bombed village and massacred caravan wins new recruits to the Taliban and its allies.

          OPEN WARFARE

          The U.S. and its allies are edging into open warfare against Pakistan. The western occupation army in Afghanistan is unable to defeat Taliban fighters due to its lack of combat troops. The outgoing supreme commander, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, recently admitted he would need 400,000 soldiers to pacify Afghanistan.

          Unable to win in Afghanistan, the frustrated western powers are turning on Pakistan, a nation of 165 million. Pakistanis are bitterly opposed to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and their nation's subjugation to U.S. policy under dictator Musharraf.

          "We just need to occupy Pakistan's tribal territory," insists the Pentagon, "to stop its Pashtun tribes from supporting and sheltering Taliban." But a U.S.-led invasion of FATA simply will push pro-Taliban Pashtun militants deeper into Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province, drawing western troops ever deeper into Pakistan. Already overextended, western forces will be stretched even thinner and clashes with Pakistan's tough regular army may be inevitable.

          Widening the Afghan War into Pakistan is military stupidity on a grand scale, and political madness. But Washington and its obedient allies seem hell-bent on charging into a wider regional war that no number of heavy bombers will win.


          "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
          "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

          Comment


          • #6
            I think Karzai should declare there was a amnesty for those prisoners to take away the propaganda victory from the Taliban
            Blah

            Comment


            • #7
              He can't secure a prison in his second largest city but he threatens to attack Pakistan.

              Meanwhile, supporters of the "good war" are silent again...
              "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
              "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

              Comment


              • #8
                Can I make a move to ban all "Sun" articles from being posted?
                "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

                Comment


                • #9
                  Feel like shooting the messenger as well. Don't like the message?
                  "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
                  "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Here you go Asher. A CBC report. Notice the stunning differences.

                    Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday said his country has the right to send troops into Pakistan to fight Taliban insurgents who launch cross-border attacks.

                    Speaking at a news conference in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Karzai threatened to send the troops after Pakistan-based Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who vowed in May to send fighters into Afghanistan to wage war on foreign troops.

                    There are currently tens of thousands of foreign troops in Afghanistan, including about 2,500 Canadians, as part of the International Security Assistance Force created after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the former Taliban government in 2001.

                    Karzai said Afghanistan has the right to self-defence when it comes to the cross-border attacks.

                    "When they cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same. Therefore, Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house," he said.

                    "And the other fellow, [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar of Pakistan should know the same," Karzai continued. "This is a two-way road in this case, and Afghans are good at the two-way road journey."

                    Karzai has previously pleaded to international forces to confront militants in Pakistan, but this was the first time he has threatened to send Afghan troops across the border.

                    "We will complete the journey and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years," he said.

                    In Pakistan, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said his country is a sovereign state that wants good relations with its neighbours.

                    But he said the Afghan-Pakistan border is too long to prevent people from crossing, "even if Pakistan puts its entire army along the border."

                    "Neither do we interfere in anyone else's matters, nor will we allow anyone to interfere in our territorial limits and our affairs," Gilani told the Associated Press. "We want a stable Afghanistan. It is in our interest."


                    Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his country has the right to send troops into Pakistan to fight Taliban insurgents who launch cross-border attacks.
                    "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
                    "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I'm referring to your OP. And yes, there's a major difference between the Sun OP and CBC article.
                      "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                      Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Wezil
                        Feel like shooting the messenger as well. Don't like the message?
                        I didn't even read it. The Sun is a complete waste of time.
                        "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                        Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Fine Asher. I will bother you with my sources no longer.

                          Take care all.
                          "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
                          "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                            Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              It's tough to get the actual truth here in the US (so I automatically think it is worse than is reported), but to me this seems like a COLLOSSAL FU(K UP. Or perhaps it tells us once again that it is impossible to control countries 1000's of miles away no matter how good our toys are.

                              Either way, this whole thing is so unbelievable it sounds like a WWII American movie with John Wayne where he raids the POW camp, frees them and then they take over the Nazi's. (It could also be a RAMBO movie)

                              UNBELIEVABLE.

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