A young man is skinned alive. A sign of new Taliban brutality?

[MariaThinks]

Source: Washington Post

KABUL — In a remote area of Afghanistan, where thousands of years of hardscrabble tribal culture increasingly mixes with a resurgent Taliban militancy, this is how Fazl Ahmad allegedly died.

Local officials in Ghor province said one of Ahmad’s distant relatives was suspected of killing a former Taliban commander. In December, militants dragged Ahmad from his house and cut out his eyes in retaliation.

Ahmad was still alive and screaming when the attackers began carving the skin off his chest, leaving his heart exposed. Then they threw the 21-year old laborer off a 10-story cliff, officials said.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-young-man-was-skinned-alive-in-afghanistan-a-sign-of-new-taliban-brutality/2016/06/10/6b7592fa-2e8a-11e6-b9d5-3c3063f8332c_story.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Did this take place at the Dreadfort? nt

[bravenak]

2. That was my first thought too.

[Aerows]

23. Song of Ice and Fire reference noted. n/t

[packman]

3. Jesus, monsters - bomb the shit out of them

and then bomb them some more.

[840high]

5. I want them all dead. They

are not humans.

[DustyJoe]

9. We can't do that

They may be the next batch of refugees and maybe living in the US will change their ways.

Now for something completely different,
I agree, bomb then into dust.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. That's what they want....

It's better to get the local nations to deal with them.

[IronLionZion]

15. The US has been bombing them the last 15 years

how's that working out?

[philosslayer]

20. What do you think? Nukes maybe?

Yeah, thats probably the ticket.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. Sounds like the Dark Ages.

This stuff is so hard to read.

[demosincebirth]

29. They do live in the Dark Ages.

[sulphurdunn]

7. Why are we still in Afghanistan?

Would some refresh my memory.

[packman]

8. Because we're Americans and got a big war machine

And that seems to be the only justification we need

[BunkieBandit]

10. Oh, so if we leave there and the middle east, the Taliban

and ISIS will stop. Cool. Problem solved.

[PersonNumber503602]

24. I may be wrong, but I didn't interpret that person's post as such

I took it more as a "We're there, but this shit is still happening. So we're there because we have a big military that we feel we need to use for everything."

Now, I don't 100% agree with the sentiment, although I do some extent.

[Midnight Writer]

26. Our (meaning the USA's) problem would be solved

We have been in Afghanistan for fifteen years now. We have lost thousands of our best citizens. We have spent over a trillion (yes, that is a trillion with a "t&quot dollars on this project. And there is no end in sight.

England played this scenario and lost.

The USSR played this scenario and lost.

I understand the humanitarian concern. But the largest casualties from terror groups is happening in Nigeria and Somalia. Why are we not spending trillions on wars in those nations?

Answer: Because it is not in our national interest. Nor is an endless war in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, or Libya.

There is no more of a path to winning here then there was in Viet Nam. We are only prolonging the misery of the people caught up in our prideful fantasy of bombing these folks into accepting our values.

[sulphurdunn]

33. Being there has done one hell of a cool job

solving the problem that didn't exist until we created it in the first place.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Originally it was to put bases along the gas pipeline the Taleban refused to let us build...

But then it turned out there wasn't as much gas as the oil companies thought.

Now we're there because we're afraid it will be seen as a weakness to pull out.

[End Of The Road]

40. Ah, but now there is a NEW pipeline gonna go through there

The TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India). And I seem to recall reading that Chevron and ExxonMobil (I think) are set to make a bundle on this one. Our involvement in other countries for humanitarian reasons is, by and large, BS.

[Elmergantry]

16. Our President says we were gone from Afghanistan years ago.

Get with the program...

[Nye Bevan]

21. Even Bernie voted for that war.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2001/h342

[sulphurdunn]

34. He voted to smack down the Taliban

and to go after bin-Laden, not fight a winless war 15 years after the ostensible reason for it had passed.

[kentauros]

30. Rare Earth Minerals.

[font size="4"]$1 Trillion Trove of Rare Minerals Revealed Under Afghanistan[/font]
By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | September 4, 2014 07:35am ET


Rare Earths, clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium and gadolinium. Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture / Peggy Greb

Despite being one of the poorest nations in the world, Afghanistan may be sitting on one of the richest troves of minerals in the world, valued at nearly $1 trillion, according to U.S. scientists.

Afghanistan, a country nearly the size of Texas, is loaded with minerals deposited by the violent collision of the Indian subcontinent with Asia. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began inspecting what mineral resources Afghanistan had after U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power in the country in 2004. As it turns out, the Afghanistan Geological Survey staff had kept Soviet geological maps and reports up to 50 years old or more that hinted at a geological gold mine.

In 2006, U.S. researchers flew airborne missions to conduct magnetic, gravity and hyperspectral surveys over Afghanistan. The magnetic surveys probed for iron-bearing minerals up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface, while the gravity surveys tried to identify sediment-filled basins potentially rich in oil and gas. The hyperspectral survey looked at the spectrum of light reflected off rocks to identify the light signatures unique to each mineral. More than 70 percent of the country was mapped in just two months.

The surveys verified all the major Soviet finds. Afghanistan may hold 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, and lodes of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For instance, the Khanneshin carbonatite deposit in Afghanistan's Helmand province is valued at $89 billion, full as it is with rare earth elements.
(more at linked headline)

[Warpy]

11. What's next the blood eagle?

If you don't know what that is, don't look it up.

This sounds like propaganda, actually. Taking skin off won't expose a heart. You also have to saw through ribs and remove fascia and muscle tissue and that would have killed him quickly from shock.

Honestly, ISIL sounds positively Romanesque in its murder methods, though, even without hyperbole. Since so many are now addicted to meth, they're likely to imitate the propaganda.

[That Guy 888]

27. Examing this report, it seems a little sloppy.

Ahmad was still alive and screaming when the attackers began carving the skin off his chest, leaving his heart exposed. Then they threw the 21-year old laborer off a 10-story cliff, officials said.

Unless the video showed more than this report indicates, how would the officials know unless they were there?

and

The Taliban denied involvement in the grisly crime, the aftermath of which was documented in a recently circulated video and photograph.

I thought that daesh liked to fully video their executions and proudly take credit for being medieval morons.

[happyslug]

37. Daesh and the Taliban are two different groups.

The Taliban are a Pushan Tribal group, made up of natives of southern Afghanistan. DAESH is an Arabic group out of Saudi Arabia. They both dislike the US being in Afghanistan, both are funded by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but DAESH is viewed by native Afghans as useful allies and tolerated as such, the Taliban is viewed as a native resistance group fighting for Afghanistan. DAESH is like Al Queda, to be tolerated when useful and treated as guests after the fighting is over, but expected to follow tribal traditions while in Afghanistan.

DAESH and the Taliban have been at odds over the last two years,as DAESH moved into Afghanistan. They do work together but it is more of the Taliban seeing DAESH as useful allies as oppose to as friends. Thus the Taliban condemnation of this act, an act against the traditions of the tribes of Afghanistan.

[That Guy 888]

39. You are correct. I did confuse the two.

But the questions are still relevant:

Unless the video showed more than this report indicates, how would the officials know he was "alive and screaming" unless they were there? As far as history goes there have been both real and fake atrocities that were widely reported.

and

Don't Terrorist organizations usually take credit for their actions?

daesh does(as well as attacks that they actually had little to do with), I do not know if the taliban usually takes credit or not.

[AngryAmish]

12. A peaceful land, a quiet people.

[bunnies]

35. 50 dead. 53 injured.

50 dead. You were saying?

[AngryAmish]

36. The Trueborn Lord of Winterfell only needs twenty good men.

[benld74]

17. Recall, US was helping Afghan

Against Russia invasion. Helping Bin Laden.
Russia left knowing it was not winnable, but not us. NO. Not us.
Not after countless $$$$. Countless deaths. Countless atrocities.
Countless $$$$ made by corporations
Men not coming home, physically, mentally.
For what??
Nothing
Absolutely nothing
War sucks

[Matthew28]

18. My faith in humanity drops to the floor

When I read about the isis and taliban. True evil and millions of people seem to fed this idiocy without stop.

Sad.

[elmac]

19. A sign of desperation

Daesh's evil empire is crumbling fast and they will do what ever it takes to stay in the news, to be relevant. The best thing to do is ignore their monstrous acts and keep pounding them into the ground.

[PersonNumber503602]

25. Wrong group of people. Doesn't Daesh refer to ISIS?

From what I read/heard, the Taliban isn't too welcoming of ISIS in Afghanistan.

[Marrah_G]

31. No- it's all about a culture of revenge

Revenge plays a large part in the psyche of these regions.

[Heeeeers Johnny]

22. Is Ramsey Bolton fighting alongside the Taliban now?

[img][/img]

[tirebiter]

28. How We Nearly Caught Osama bin Laden in 2001 until Iraq took precedence

The Account of How We Nearly Caught Osama bin Laden in 2001

https://newrepublic.com/article/72086/the-battle-tora-bora

That bin Laden was at Tora Bora was not, by this point, a secret. The New York Times had reported it on November 25. Four days later, when asked by ABC News whether the Al Qaeda leader was at Tora Bora, Dick Cheney said, “I think he’s probably in that general area.”

Meanwhile, the additional forces that Crumpton and Berntsen were requesting were certainly available. There were around 2,000 U.S. troops in or near the Afghan theater at the time. At the U.S. airbase known as K2 in Uzbekistan were stationed some 1,000 soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division, whose specialty is fighting in harsh terrain. Hundreds of those soldiers had already deployed to Bagram Air Force Base, 40 miles north of Kabul. In addition, 1,200 Marines were stationed at Forward Operating Base Rhino, near Kandahar, from the last week of November onward. Brigadier General James Mattis, the commander of the Marines in the Afghan theater, reportedly asked to send his men into Tora Bora, but his request was turned down. In the end, there were more journalists—about 100, according to Nic Robertson of CNN and Susan Glasser of The Washington Post, who both covered the battle—in and around Tora Bora than there were Western soldiers.

There may also have been a reluctance to send soldiers into harm’s way. The Pentagon’s risk aversion is now hard to recall following the years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the thousands of American soldiers who have died—but it was quite real. In the most recent U.S. war—the 1999 conflict in Kosovo—not a single American had been killed in combat. And, at that point in the Afghan war, more journalists had died than American soldiers. Fury says that the 14 Green Berets who were on the ground at Tora Bora from the “white” Special Forces were told to “stay well short of even the foothills,” some four kilometers from any action—“pretty much out of harm’s way.” The Green Berets did call in airstrikes but were not allowed to engage in firefights with Al Qaeda because of concerns that the battle would turn into a “meat grinder.

Then there was Iraq. In late November, Donald Rumsfeld told Franks that Bush “wants us to look for options in Iraq.” Rumsfeld instructed the general to “dust off” the Pentagon’s blueprint for an Iraq invasion and brief him in a week’s time. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers would later write, “I realized that one week was not giving Tom and his staff much time to sharpen” the plan. Franks points out in his autobiography that his staff was already working seven days a week, 16-plus hours a day, as the Tora Bora battle was reaching its climax. Although Franks doesn’t say so, it is impossible not to wonder if the labor-intensive planning ordered by his boss for another major war was a distraction from the one he was already fighting.

[MFM008]

32. I knew they had him at TB

then all of a sudden nothing. They let him go because Bush/Cheney wouldn't have had their excuse for war and total disaster.
I remember sitting there thinking they let that scumbag go on purpose.

[happyslug]

38. Don't assume conspiracy when stupidity will suffice.

Sorry George Bush wanted to invade Iraq NOT Afghanistan, thus Tora Bora was seen as something getting in the way of the real target, Baghdad. Thus getting bin Laden was always a secondary aim to invading Iraq and that is the best explanation for why vin bin Laden escaped. 9/11 was useful as an excuse to invade Iraq, that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or bin Laden was an unimportant detail in the decision to invade Iraq.