Afghan police kill 7 comrades, defect to Taleban

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/June/subcontinent_June143.xml§ion=subcontinent

KANDAHAR - Five Afghan police shot dead seven fellow officers as they slept, before defecting to join Taleban guerrillas fighting in southern Afghanistan, a provincial official said on Monday.

Sunday night’s incident outside Qalat, the provincial capital of southern province of Zabul, comes amid the bloodiest period in an insurgency raging since US-backed forces toppled the militants’ government in 2001.

“The seven policemen were asleep when the other five jumped, killed them, took their arms and joined the Taleban,” provincial spokesman, Gulab Shah Alikhail, told Reuters.

He said provincial officials were hunting the five policemen and had “intelligence” that they had joined the Taleban.

[shadowknows69]

1. Wow we must be doing well

people are defecting to the "Vanquished" Taliban.

[TomInTib]

2. Now THAT is proof positive of progress!

Jeebus.

edited so I could k&r

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. Kicked and Recommended

[brokensymmetry]

4. K&R n/t

.

[Eugene]

5. If this becomes a trend, Afghanistan can completely unravel.

The Afghan "coalition" was patched together with fighters
who changed sides to fight against the Taleban after
changing sides to fight for the Taleban. If more police
and soldiers defect, the Taleban can take back significant
parts of the country.

This could be the start of something very bad.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Yea but you have to figure the Russians are laughing their asses off

Especially after the USA hired Osama bin Laden and his crew to terrorize the Soviet Union to convince them to leave Afghanistan.

Don

[Doctor_J]

10. Those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it

and since * was drunk the entire time Russia occupied Afghanistan, this is probably a big shock to him.

[bobbieinok]

13. what's the story of the British 19th invasion of Afghanistan??

didn't only a very small percentage make it back???

I think Sherlock Holmes' Dr Watson was a veteran of the Afghan campaign.

[Yupster]

12. I'm just finishing a book "Jawbreaker"

which was written by one of the Special Forces guys that was in Afghanistan during the Taliban's overthrow.

One of the themes of the book is how the Afghan tribal leaders would all stay in touch with each other during the fighting and they would often switch sides, march their troops to the other lines and file right into the trenches to fight against their yesterday allies.

e spent most of his time cobbling together little coalitions, not to take the country, but to take each individual valley or region. Once the area was taken, the coalition would depart and have no interest in going any further.

Once Kabul was taken the war had to pretty much start over because none of the Northern Colition tribes had any interest in going into the Pashtun lands to the south. So the whole coalition building had to begin again bribing Pashtun warlords to turn against the Taliban.

This pause gave the Taliban lots of time to graceully leave the country and go to Pakistan's tribal region and all the handful of US special forces guys could do was call in air strikes on roads, but the Taliban leaders were travelling in cabs so they couldn't be identified anyway.

It's a very interesting read for anyone interested in the topic. The most amazing theme is just how few Americans were in the war. A team of three with General Dostum, another four guys in the Pnshir Valley. Two guys with Khan near Mazar-i-sharif. An amazing story of a handful of guys working with militias to overthrow the country. They had lots of bribe money to give out though.

[Igel]

7. More good non-Muslims

killing their comrades as they slept and running off to enforce shari'a. You think the actual Muslims in the area would do something about it--if nothing else, haven't they created actual blood-debt that'll have to be paid?

Why these non-Muslims do this kind of thing for 'Alla'--obviously not the diety, but some variety of pork-based corn-dog, no doubt. Perhaps it's the advertising put out by the local mosk(tm), not to be confused with an actual religious establishment, but something more akin to an Afghan McDonald's.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=tus&q=Afghanistan's+constitution+is+based+on+Shariah+law&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web

[Igel]

11. Yes, but we've

heard repeatedly how good shari'a is, and it's not the law it's the interpretation.

In any event, half of it is pushtunwali. Still, it's rather like having a roommate kill his co-workers so he can run off to do work for Jesus, if you listen to the NYT's view of what all Muslims necessarily believe.

But yeah, one screw-up was allowing the courts to hang in there in Afghanistan instead of executing, or at least exiling, the judges.

[Doctor_J]

9. Time to get ALL of our soldiers out of Afghanistan NOW

since Smikr handed it back to the Taliban, having our guys & girls there serves NO purpose whatsoever. Bring them back immediately.