Taliban cut off the heads of 17 people

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton consider the Taliban as partners in peace. It matters not to them that the Taliban is not interested in anything but lopping off the heads of infidels or anyone who doesn’t toe their line.

ABC News – Insurgents attacked a large party in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan and beheaded 17 people, officials said on Monday.

The head of the local government initially said the victims were civilians at a celebration late Sunday involving music and dancing in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province. The official, Neyamatullah Khan, said the Taliban killed the party-goers for flouting the extreme brand of Islam embraced by the militants.

However, a provincial government official said later that those killed were caught up in a fight between two Taliban commanders over two women, who were among the dead. Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said shooting broke out during the fight. He said it was unclear whether the music and dancing triggered the violence and whether the dead were all civilians or possibly included some fighters.

Ahmadi said all of the bodies were decapitated but it was not clear if they had been shot first.

In other violence, two American soldiers were shot and killed by one of their Afghan colleagues in the east, military officials said. Afghan officials said the killings appeared to be accidental, however NATO would not comment on the question of whether the killings were intentional or accidental.

The Taliban has controlled large parts of the district of Musa Qala, an area encompassing more than 100 villages, since 2001. They enforce the same strict interpretation of Islamic law that was imposed on all of Afghanistan during Taliban rule of Afghanistan from 1996-2001.

U.S. Marines have battled the Taliban for years in Musa Qala, but the insurgent group still wields in significant power in the area as international forces across the country draw down and hand over control to Afghan forces. Helmand province, where Musa Qala is located, is one of the areas seeing the largest reduction in U.S. troops. The U.S. started reducing forces from a peak of nearly 103,000 last year, and plans to have 68,000 troops by October.

Many Afghans and international observers have expressed concerns that the Taliban will try to re-impose strict Islamic justice as international forces withdraw. Under the Taliban, all music and film was banned as un-Islamic, and women were barred from leaving their homes without a male family member as an escort.

Afghanistan: 3 American special forces soldiers murdered in cold blood during Ramadan dinner invitation

American special forces soldiers had been invited to break the Ramadan fast. “During dinner, the police commander and his colleagues shot them and then fled. The commander was Afghan National Police in charge of local police in Sangin.”

When will Americans learn that in Islam, lying for the purpose of killing infidels is a virtue? Answer: Not as long as Liberals control all the strings. As long as Liberals consider the truth to be hate speech, Muslims will continue to get away with murder, mayhem, and inroads into every aspect of life.

Telegraph (via Weasel Zippers) – Three American special forces soldiers were shot dead by a man in Afghan uniform in what appeared to be the latest incident of local forces turning their weapons on their foreign allies.

The Americans were killed after being invited to dinner to discuss security in Sangin district of Helmand on Thursday evening.

The shooting was at least the third incident this week where Afghan forces have opened fire on foreign forces.

Thursday night’s shooting appeared to be a carefully planned attack, Afghan officials said.

American special forces soldiers had been invited to break the Ramadan fast at a house in the Sarwan Qala area by a police commander called Assadullah.

During the meal they came under fire.

“During dinner, the police commander and his colleagues shot them and then fled. The commander was Afghan National Police in charge of local police in Sangin,” a senior Afghan official told the Reuters news agency.

Video: Taliban massacre busload of Shia Muslims as they shout “Allahu Akbar!”

Obama’s “peace partners” demonstrate again what peace will look like as soon as they are in charge again.

(Graphic Video) Via Atlas Shrugs

The attack occurred back in February but for some reason the media couldn’t be bothered to report on it.

MyGilgit via GWP:

Sectarian gunmen ambushed a bus on Tuesday, killing 18 Shia Muslims in a usually peaceful region of northern Pakistan that neighbours the former Taliban stronghold of Swat, officials said.

The bus was stopped, before passengers were ordered off and shot in the mountainous district of Kohistan as it travelled from Rawalpindi to the northern city of Gilgit.

“Armed men hiding on both sides of the road attacked the bus,” local police chief Mohammad Ilyas said.

“Eighteen people have died and eight wounded,” he added. The ambush happened near the town of Harban, 130 miles (208 kilometres) north of the capital Islamabad.

Survivors said seven or eight gunmen stopped the bus, forced the passengers to get off and then opened fire, regional administration chief Khalid Omarzai told AFP by telephone, confirming the casualty numbers.

“It appears to be a sectarian attack,” local MP Abdul Sattar Khan said.

“Its a remote area. We are getting reports that the gunmen forced people to get off the bus. They checked their papers and shot them dead,” he told AFP.

The victims were Shia Muslims.

Taliban publicly execute woman with 5 bullets to the back of the head

Don’t forget that these are the savages that Barack Obama insists are his peace partners.

She was accused of adultery.

Reuters (h/t Weasel Zippers) — A man Afghan officials say is a member of the Taliban shot dead a woman accused of adultery in front of a crowd near Kabul, a video obtained by Reuters showed, a sign that the austere Islamist group dictates law even near the Afghan capital.

In the three-minute video, a turban-clad man approaches a woman kneeling in the dirt and shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the 150 or so men watching in a village in Parwan province.

“Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it’s the wrong way,” another man says as the shooter gets closer to the woman. “It is the order of Allah that she be executed”.

Provincial Governor Basir Salangi said the video, obtained on Saturday, was shot a week ago in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district, about an hour’s drive from Kabul.

Such rare public punishment was a painful reminder to Afghan authorities of the Taliban’s 1996–2001 period in power, and it raised concern about the treatment of Afghan women 11 years into the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents.

“When I saw this video, I closed my eyes. . . The woman was not guilty; the Taliban are guilty,” Salangi told Reuters.

When the unnamed woman, most of her body tightly wrapped in a shawl, fell sideways after being shot several times in the head, the spectators chanted: “Long live the Afghan mujahideen! (Islamist fighters)”, a name the Taliban use for themselves.

Taliban poisons another Afghan girls’ school, 43 hospitalized

This is at least the third time.

Yet, Barack Obama is convinced that he can make a peace deal with these monsters.

“When I entered the school, I smelt an ordour. After smelling, I fell unconscious on the ground,” said Zakia, a 9th grade student of the school.

RAWA (h/t WZ)— Once again radicals opposing girls’ education on Sunday poisoned more than three dozen schoolgirls in northern Takhar province, the third incident of its kind over the past two months, officials said.

The victims, students of the Bibi Hajira High School, situated on the 5th road of Taloqan city, the provincial capital, fell sick for unknown reasons, Education Director Abdul Wahab Zafari told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The incident takes place four days after more than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers of the same school were poisoned, in the second attack in as many months, blamed on conservative radicals opposed to education for women and girls in the north, according to police and education officials.

Nearly 43 girls were brought to the Takhar Civil Hospital, Public Health Director Dr. Hafizullah confirmed to Pajhwok.

Over 120 schoolgirls and 3 teachers poisoned by Taliban, second such attack

These are the savages that the Obama Administration is seeking so desperately to hand the country over to.

(Reuters) — More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country’s north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday.

The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left unconscious.

Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says the Taliban appear intent on closing schools ahead of a 2014 withdrawal by foreign combat troops.

“A part of their Al Farooq spring offensive operation is . . . to close schools. By poisoning girls they want to create fear. They try to make families not send their children to school,” NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.

Last month, 150 schoolgirls were poisoned in Takhar province after they drank contaminated water.

Obama releases high-level Taliban in exchange for ‘promise’ to give up violence

Appeaser-in-Chief.

The Islamonazis think we’re weak and stupid as hell. They are right in both cases.

KABUL — The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks.

As the United States has unsuccessfully pursued a peace deal with the Taliban, the “strategic release” program has quietly served as a live diplomatic channel, allowing American officials to use prisoners as bargaining chips in restive provinces where military power has reached its limits.

But the releases are an inherent gamble: The freed detainees are often notorious fighters who would not be released under the traditional legal system for military prisoners in Afghanistan. They must promise to give up violence — and U.S. officials warn them that if they are caught attacking American troops, they will be detained once again.

There are no absolute guarantees, however, and officials would not say whether those who have been released under the program have later returned to attack U.S. and Afghan forces once again.

“Everyone agrees they are guilty of what they have done and should remain in detention. Everyone agrees that these are bad guys. But the benefits outweigh the risks,” said one U.S. official who, like others, discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the program.

The releases have come amid broader efforts to end the decade-long war through negotiation, which is a central feature of the Obama administration’s strategy for leaving Afghanistan. Those efforts, however, have yielded little to no progress in recent years. In part, they have been stymied by the unwillingness of the United States to release five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay — a gesture that insurgent leaders have said they see as a precondition for peace talks.  (more >>>)

Taliban launch largest coordinated attack yet, 7 locations in Afghanistan hit, including British embassy

Meanwhile, party animal U.S. Sec. of State Clinton and Surrenderer-in-Chief Obama are partying it up in Colombia.

The Taliban are demonstrating that they are as strong as ever, and that the U.S. is a paper tiger. No enemy fears the U.S. anymore. And if the skinny little Marxist gets four more years to emasculate the U.S. military, the U.S. will find itself with a lot more enemies ready to humiliate us.

(Guardian) — Kabul and several other key locations in Afghanistan were rocked by gunfire and explosions on Sunday as the Taliban-led insurgency launched its largest coordinated attack in its 11-year struggle.

The onslaught began at 2pm local time, with gun and rocket attacks on high profile buildings in Kabul, including the British embassy and several other foreign missions, parliament and Afghan government ministries. Simultaneous strikes were launched in the nearby provinces of Logar and Paktia, and on the airport in the eastern trading city of Jalalabad. Five hours later, as dusk fell in the capital, gun battles were still raging. A Taliban claim to have attacked President Hamid Karzai’s palace could not be immediately confirmed.

The attacks in Kabul resembled the audacious assault in September last year when gunmen stormed an abandoned, half-built tower from where they fired rockets on to the US Embassy, prompting a 20-hour siege by Afghan special forces.

Only this time the scale of the attack in the capital alone was even greater. At least seven sites across the heavily guarded city were attacked, raising worrying questions about the Taliban’s continued potency despite intense US efforts to degrade them on the battlefield.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said the attacks proved the movement’s strength. “The puppet government and its foreign backers claimed the Taliban would not be able to launch a spring offensive, but today’s attacks were the start of our spring offensive.”

In the south-west of the city gunmen managed to climb a five-storey building site from where they fired on the Afghan parliament, the Commerce Ministry and the Russian Embassy.

Some members of parliament, which is full of battle hardened former mujahideen commanders who fought a guerrilla campaign against Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s, grabbed weapons and joined parliamentary guards to try to repel the attack.

Pamir Patang, chief of staff at the neighbouring Commerce Ministry, said one of the fortified guard positions at the corner of the large ministerial compound was destroyed by a rocket propelled grenade.

“There appears to be quite a number of attackers who are well positioned inside the building and they are targeting us from there,” he said. “They used to just target the Afghan security agencies but now they seem to be deliberately targeting the country’s economic institutions as well.”

He said various foreign advisers working for the British company Adam Smith International were still stuck inside the sprawling compound and would probably not leave until the area had been secured.

US soldier goes on shooting spree in Afghan village

Gulp.

Wait until the Muslim world starts running with this. Let the apologizing begin!

UPDATE: Via Drudge

Went house to house on rampage...
Poured chemicals, burned bodies...
'Laughing and appeared drunk'...
9 children, 3 women among dead...

ABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A US service member walked out of his base in southern Afghanistan before dawn Sunday and started shooting Afghan civilians, Afghan and NATO officials said. There were widely varying reports of casualties.

People were killed in the shooting spree in Kandahar province, Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said, though he did not provide numbers.

“The incident happened. There are some people killed, some wounded. But I don’t have the details,” Wesa said in a phone interview.

Helicopters were circling overhead at Alkozai village in Panjwai district as a delegation from the governor’s office arrived to determine exactly what happened, but details were still sketchy.

A resident of Alkozai, where the shootings took place, told an Associated Press reporter that 16 people were killed as the US service member went into three different houses and started shooting. The villager, Abdul Baqi, said he had not seen the bodies himself, but had talked to the family members of the dead.

“When it was happening in the middle of the night we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again,” Baqi said.

NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a US service member had been detained as the alleged shooter and that the coalition had reports of “multiple wounded” but none killed. The wounded were evacuated to NATO medical facilities, he said.

The service member was being held at a NATO base and US forces are investigating the shooting in cooperation with Afghan authorities, Brockhoff said. He said it was not clear if the alleged shooter knew the victims.

“This is a deeply regrettable incident and we extend our thoughts and concerns to the families involved,” NATO said in a statement.

There were reports of protests in Panjwai following the shooting and the U.S. embassy warned travelers in Kandahar province to “exercise caution.”

Giddy Karzai: Obama to order release of 5 Gitmo terrorists to appease Taliban

We are supposed to believe that this “good-faith measure” will persuade the Taliban to let America surrender peacefully. Once gone, they can slaughter as many people as their heart desires, as far as Obama is concerned.

If Obama isn’t apologizing to terrorists, he’s appeasing them. When he’s not appeasing, he’s fighting their wars for them. One may easily conclude we have a terrorist sympathizer in the White House.

(Reuters) – Five Taliban detainees held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay military prison have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move Afghanistan believes will boost a nascent peace process, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said on Saturday.

The transfer idea is part of U.S. efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table to avoid prolonged instability in Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.

“We are hopeful this will be a positive step towards peace efforts,” Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters, adding the Taliban detainees would be re-united with their families in Qatar if the transfer takes place.

It would be one of a series of good-faith measures that could set in motion the first substantial political negotiations on the conflict in Afghanistan since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001 in a U.S.-led invasion.

A year after it was unveiled, the Obama administration’s peace initiative may soon offer the United States a historic opportunity to broker an end to a war that began as the response to the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

But the peace drive also presents risks for President Barack Obama.

He faces the potential for political fallout months before a presidential election, as his government considers backing an arrangement that would give some degree of power to the Taliban, known for their brutality and extreme interpretation of Islam.

Despite months of covert diplomacy, it remains unclear whether the prisoner transfer will go ahead.

Doubts are growing about whether the Taliban leadership is willing to weather possible opposition from junior and more hard-core members who appear to oppose negotiations.

Asked about the disclosure by Karzai’s office that the detainees were willing to be transferred, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: “The United States has not decided to transfer any Taliban officials from Guantanamo Bay.”

“We are not in a position to discuss ongoing deliberations or individual detainees, but our goal of closing Guantanamo is well established and widely understood,” she said. “In general, any decision to transfer a detainee from Guantanamo would be undertaken in accordance with U.S. law and in consultation with the Congress.”  (more >>>)

2 more U.S. troops killed by Afghan security forces after Obama says his apologizing worked

No sooner than Barack Hussein Obama insisted that his grovelling apologies did wonders for “calming things down” in Afghanistan, 2 more U.S. troops are murdered by cutthroats who were supposedly working on our side.

Fox News – KABUL –  Two American soldiers were killed Thursday in a shooting by an Afghan soldier and a literacy teacher at a joint base in southern Afghanistan, officials said, the latest in a series of deaths as anti-Americanism rises following the burning of Korans by U.S. soldiers.

Both were killed on the same day that the top NATO commander allowed a small number of foreign advisers to return to work at Afghan ministries after more than a week of being locked down in secure locations because of the killing of two other Americans.

Thursday’s killings raised to six the number of Americans killed in less than two weeks amid heightened tensions over the Feb. 20 burning of Korans and other Islamic texts that had been dumped in a garbage pit at Bagram Air Field near Kabul. More than 30 Afghans also were killed in six days of violent riots that broke out after the incident.

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials apologized and said the burning was an accident. His statement has failed to quell the anger, although Muslim protests over the burnings have ebbed this week.

Afghan security forces — or militants disguised in their uniforms — have staged a number of attacks against Americans and other members of the international alliance in recent years. But the recent deaths have been linked to the Koran burnings.

Allen West on Obama’s koran mess: “Here we go again, offering apology after apology…”

Allen West tells it like it is.

The only thing he should have added is that not only does Karzai owe the U.S. an apology, Barack Hussein Obama owes the American people an apology.

(Allen West via Weasel Zippers)

I want to extend my sincere condolences to the families of the Army Colonel and Major who were killed by Afghanistan security forces over this “burning Koran” episode.

If we had resolute leadership in the White House, we would have explained that these Islamic terrorist enemy combatants detained at the Parwan facility used the Koran to write jihadist messages to pass to others.

In doing so, they violated their own cultural practice and defiled the Koran and turned the Koran into contraband.

The Islamic cultural practice and Parwan detention facility procedures support burning the “contraband.”

Instead here we go again, offering apology after apology and promising to “hold those responsible accountable.” Responsible for what?

When tolerance becomes a one-way street it leads to cultural suicide.

This time it immediately led to the deaths of two American Warriors.

America is awaiting the apology from President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai: Put U.S. troops on trial and punish them

Another Obama foreign policy victory.

Dumb and Dumber. (Dumber on right.)

(CNSNews.com) – Three days after President Barack Obama dispatched his ambassador to Afghanistan to hand deliver a personal letter from the president of the United States to Afghan President Hamid Karzai apologizing because U.S. forces at Bagram Air Force Base had mistakenly burnt some Korans, Karzai has responded to the gesture in a statement broadcast live on Afghan television.

Karzai, according to a BBC translation of his remarks made Sunday, told the Afghan people he was speaking to them after discussing the matter with “jihadi leaders,” “prominent scholars,” and Afghan elected officials, and that he spoke for the “pure sentiments” of the “Afghan nation” and the “Islamic world,” when he said: “We call on the US government to bring the perpetrators of the act to justice and put them on trial and punish them.”

Koran suicide avenger kills 9 at Afghan airport

Maybe they need just one more White House apology. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Afghan protest

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide car bomber struck early Monday at the gates of Jalalabad airport in eastern Afghanistan, killing nine people in a large blast, officials said.

The Taliban said the attack on the airport, which serves both civilian and international military aircraft, was revenge for the burning of Muslim holy books at an American military base.

The attacker drove up to the gates of the airport shortly after dawn and detonated his explosives in a “very strong” blast, said Nangarhar provincial police spokesman Hazrad Mohammad.

Among the dead were six civilians, two airport guards and one soldier, Mohammad said. Another six people were wounded, he said.

An AP photographer saw at least four destroyed cars at the gates of the airport.

NATO forces spokesman Capt. Justin Brockhoff said that no international forces were killed in the early morning attack and that the installation was not breached by the blast.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying a suicide car bomber had driven up to the airport gate and detonated his explosives as international forces were changing from night to morning guard duty.

“This attack is revenge against those soldiers who burned our Quran,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email.

7 U.S. military trainers wounded by a grenade from irate Muslims in Afghanistan

And still not a peep of either condemnation or support from any of Imam Obama’s beloved Muslim allies. The more the Obama Administration tries to appease and kowtow to his revered Muslim friends, the less they respect him, and America.

(Via Gateway Pundit) – Seven US military trainers were wounded in a grenade attack at a base in northern Afghanistan. Reuters reported:

Seven U.S. military trainers were wounded on Sunday when a grenade was thrown at their base in northern Afghanistan, police said, as anti-Western fury deepened over the burning of the Koran at a NATO base.

Despite an apology from U.S. President Barack Obama, riots raged across the country for a sixth day on Sunday against the desecration of the Muslim holy book at a NATO air base at Bagram. Some protesters hoisted the white Taliban flag.

The Afghan Interior Ministry identified one of its employees as a suspect in the fatal shooting of two U.S. officers in its headquarters a day earlier, an attack that prompted NATO to recall its staff from ministries.

One civilian was killed, 15 more were wounded and three policemen injured in riots near the NATO base in northern Kunduz province, where the blast that wounded the Americans took place, regional police chief Samihullah Qatra told reporters.

Libyan Islamists smash, destroy British, Allied WWII cemetery over Afghanistan koran incident

Gratitude Muslim style. Didn’t we just rid the Libyans of their hated dictator so that they could enjoy sharia ‘democracy’?

To show their thanks, they take out their phony indignation on the graves of dead heroes. Such a pathetic, twisted lot of losers.

And how many mosques and korans did they themselves destroy in their idiotic civil war? The hypocrites. But, it’s all to be expected. The sad fact remains, however: that it is the West and our contemptible, spineless leaders who are the real losers. It is we who keep supporting all these brainless barbarians, bending over backwards to appease their 7th century mentalities.

Desecrated: The headstones commemorating the deaths of allied servicemen, who fought in the Western Desert campaigns between 1942 to 1943, lay smashed on the ground.

UK Daily Mail – A furious mob has desecrated dozens of Commonwealth War Graves in a Libyan cemetery amid continuing fury in the Middle East over the burning of the Koran by U.S. soldiers.

Headstones commemorating British and Allied servicemen, killed during World War II campaigns in the Western Desert, lay smashed and strewn across Benghazi Military Cemetery.

Protesters rampaged through site on Friday, despite efforts by America to calm tensions sparked when it emerged U.S. soldiers had burned Muslim holy books in a pile of rubbish at a military base in Afghanistan.  (more >>>)

Sacrifice: Some 1,214 graves are marked in Benghazi War Cemetery

Angry Afghan policeman shoots U.S. colonel and major in the head

Two more U.S. servicemen have been killed by Afghan police. They were reported to have been shot in the head.

The Taliban says the assassin was one of their infiltrators and that he had escaped to kill another day. True or not, it will in no way dissuade the Obama regime from holding “peace talks” with the 7th century barbarians.

Meanwhile, a top Iranian military commander said, “Nothing but burning the White House can relieve the wound of us, the Muslims, caused by the Burning of Quran in the US…Their apology can be accepted only by hanging their commanders; hanging their commanders means an apology. (h/t GWP)

Neither the West, nor especially Barack Hussein Obama, will ever learn that no amount of  apologizing can, or will ever appease Muslim fanatics.

UPDATE: The murders have been traced to a junior Afghan intelligence officer, Saboor Salangi, who has ties to a Pakistani religious school. (h/t GWP).

The Guardian writes:

Abdul Saboor Salangi had been an ordinary policeman with a history of absenteeism who dropped out of the force and spent some time in Pakistan before returning to another police job with the ministry, said a security source who asked not to be named.

Police raided his home in a small village in the southern part of Salang district, where he lived with his mother, wife and two children.

“When the police first sent a delegation into his house for the investigation, they didn’t tell her why, so she thought her son had died and couldn’t stop crying,” said the Salang district governor, Abdulshakur Qudosi.

The two officers, reported to be a colonel and a major, were found dead in a room inside the interior ministry that was used only by foreigners and secured with combination locks. They had been shot in the back of the head.

_________________________________________

WSJ – KABUL—Two high-ranking U.S. military advisers were killed Saturday during a clash with an Afghan national at Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry headquarters, according to Afghan and Western officials.

An American colonel and major were both found shot in the head at the busy ministry compound that is the nerve center for the Afghan law enforcement, according to one Western official in Kabul.

Afghan and American officials shut down the compound as they launched an investigation into the killings in one of the most heavily guarded parts of the capital.

Top U.S. military officials said they were still trying to determine the identity of the attacker. But one Western official in Kabul said that the two Americans were shot by an Afghan policeman upset about the burning of Qurans earlier this week at a U.S. military base.

Hours after the shooting, the Taliban issued a statement claiming that the attacker was an insurgent infiltrator who killed the Americans in retaliation for the Quran burning. In the statement, the Taliban said the assailant called to inform the insurgent group that he had carried out the attack and escaped unharmed.

Details of the incident remained sketchy.

Coalition officials in Kabul dismissed claims by some Afghan officials that the two Americans were killed by a Western colleague.

Earlier this week, an Afghan soldier shot and killed two U.S. soldiers at a small military base in eastern Afghanistan. The attacker escaped through a crowd of anti-Quran burning demonstrators outside the base.   (more >>>)

Senior Pentagon official goes apologizing at Washington mosques

Pathetic.

AP (h/t Weasel Zippers) – A senior Pentagon official is apologizing to Washington-area Muslims for the burning of Qurans at a military base in Afghanistan.

Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific security affairs, says the military is investigating and that all troops are being retrained in the handling of religious materials.

Lavoy’s remarks were Friday at a mosque in suburban Washington, D.C. They come after protests across Afghanistan over the burning of several Qurans at a U.S. military base. Military officials say 20 people have died in the protests, including two U.S. soldiers.

President Barack Obama has apologized for the burning, which authorities say was a mistake. But the protests continue.

If you can stomach it, you can watch the groveling apology by clicking on the pic below.

Taliban answers Obama’s apology with – “Kill them, beat them, take them as prisoners!”

Yet, nothing the Taliban does, says, or inspires will deter the Obama regime from “peace talks”.

Afghan, angry about the burning of Qurans, gather outside an American military base during an anti-U.S. demonstration in Mehterlam, Laghman province east of Kabul

(CNSNews.com) – In the wake of President Barack Obama sending a three-page letter to Afghan President Hamid Kharzai, apologizing for U.S. forces having mistakenly burned some Qur’ans at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan, the Taliban is calling on Muslims to kill Americans or beat them and take them as prisoners.

The call for violence against U.S. troops in Afghanistan came as Muslims in South Asia and elsewhere prepared for Friday prayers–a potentially volatile time.

Islamist groups in Pakistan, meanwhile, drummed up protests against the burning of the Qur’ans, with some leaders appealing for jihad against the United States.

Echoing incendiary calls by the Taliban for Muslims to react violently to the mishandling of the religious texts, militant leaders charged that the incident was a deliberate plot against Muslims.

Two U.S. troops and at least seven Afghans have been killed in three days of rioting in Afghanistan.

“We should not be satisfied with mere protests and empty slogans but the military bases of the invaders, their military convoys and their troops should become a target of our courageous attacks,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement directed to Taliban fighters and the “zealous and faithful people of Afghanistan.”

“Kill them, beat them, take them as prisoners and teach them such a lesson that they never summon the courage to abuse the Holy Qur’an again,” he said.

Sarah Palin demands Afghanistan apologize for killing of 2 US soldiers

While Barack Obama is apologizing all over himself over nothing, and Afghanistan’s Karzai is demanding Americans be put on public trial, the only real man is once again Sarah Palin.

UPDATE: Two more U.S. soldiers have been murdered. Angry Afghan policeman shoots U.S. colonel and major in the head.

Sarah Palin (Facebook) – Obama apologizes for the inadvertent Koran burning this week; now the U.S. trained and protected Afghan Army can apologize for killing two of our soldiers yesterday.

Military to conduct training on ‘proper handling’ of Koran

Wrap in bacon, grill, feed to starving dogs in Kabul, no?

Washington Examiner (h/t Weasel Zippers) – Military personnel stationed in Afghanistan will undergo training over the next two weeks in the “proper handling of religious materials,” after the burning of Qurans at Bagram Air Force Base sparked a protest by local Afghans today.

“Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, ISAF commander, today ordered that all coalition forces in Afghanistan complete the training by March 3,” the International Security Assistance Force announced today. An angry crowd gathered after local Afghan workers found partially-burnt copies of Qurans in a trash heap at Bagram, according to Reuters.

Gen. Allen said the burning of the Qurans was accidental. “We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again,” he said, adding that ”this was not intentional in any way.”

Taliban behead 4 men for having satellite phones

The Obama Administration, meanwhile, is desperately trying to hold “peace” talks with these savages.

AFP (h/t Weasel Zippers) – Taliban militants have beheaded four men for allegedly spying for the government in southern Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday.

The bodies of the men were discovered in Washer district of volatile Helmand province late on Sunday.

“The four men were civilians who were beheaded by Taliban for allegedly spying for government,” provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.

The Taliban had found satellite phones in the men’s possession and thought they were spies, he said, adding that mobile phones do not work in that district and it is normal for people to use satellite phones.

The militants, who have in the past used beheading as a punishment on alleged spies and traitors, were not immediately available for comment.

Afghan child bride horribly tortured for refusing to become prostitute

Good grief. This is truly heartbreaking. Some ‘people’ are just pure, unadulterated evil.

As some readers understandably find certain things nightmare-inducing, I’ll hide the sadder pictures and heart-wrenching video below the fold. Click ‘continue reading’ to view.

From the UK Daily Mail

• 15-year-old was beaten and burned with cigarettes after being locked in a toilet for five months
• Police say teenager’s in-laws also pulled out her nails and hair and locked her up with barely enough food and water to survive
• ‘This is one of the worst cases of violence against Afghan women’ says Afghanistan’s health minister
• Girl’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law both detained but police hunt is on for husband and father-in-law

A teenage Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her husband’s family for five months after she refused to become a prostitute, it emerged today.

Sahar Gul, 15, was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbours reported hearing Miss Gul crying and moaning in pain.

According to police in Baghlan, her in-laws pulled out her nails and hair, and locked her in a dark basement bathroom for about five months, with barely enough food and water to survive.

Her husband’s family also burned the teenager with cigarettes and cut out chunks of her flesh with pliers.

Afghanistan’s Karzai says he’d side with Pakistan against US in any war

If we have learned one thing over the past decade that should never be doubted again, it’s that America should not spend another red cent or drop of our precious soldiers’ blood coming to the aid of any Muslim country. It’s more than Muslims being a bunch of spiteful ingrates, they are simply incapable of reason, and adverse to liberty.

Relatedly, Iraq has announced its refusal to have any American bases on Iraqi territory once we complete the pullout later this year.

What this all means is that Afghanistan will inevitably fall to the Taliban again, and Iraq to Iran.

We wasted over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives for absolutely nothing. Next time, and there will be a next time, just dust off those B52s and blow them back to the 7th century where they belong.

Reuters (h/t Weasel Zippers) – Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday.

The remarks were in sharp contrast to recent tension between the two neighbors over cross-border raids, and Afghan accusations that Pakistan was involved in killing the chief Afghan peace envoy, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide bomber on September 20.

“God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan,” he said in the interview to Geo television.

“If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.”

Afghanistan down to just 1 Jew

The other day I posted about the eradication of Christian churches in Afghanistan. According to the State Department, the last Christian church was razed in 2010.

There are no more churches, but there is one synagogue that is occupied by the country’s last remaining Jew, Zebulon Simentov. There used to be two Jews, the other named, Isaac Levy. Meet him at the bottom of this post, and watch a funny clip from a documentary done about the two quarrelsome Jews.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, more than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent now live in Israel. The second largest population of Afghan Jews is New York, with 200 families. They mostly live in Flushing, Jamaica and Queens. Rabbi Jacob Nasirov leads the Orthodox congregation of Anshei Shalom, the lone Afghan synagogue in the United States. Members have roots not only from Afghanistan, but also Yemen, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Morocco and Lebanon.

Read about the fascinating history of Jews in Afghanistan at the Jewish Virtual Library.

CNSNews.com (h/t Weasel Zippers) – There is only “one known Jewish resident” still living in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.

That is despite the fact that Jews have lived in Afghanistan for nearly three millenia, and had a local population that was 40,000 strong as of the mid-1800s, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, a division of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.

By 1996, when the Islamist Taliban regime came to power, there were only 10 Jews still living in Afghanistan.

By 2005, four years after the U.S. invaded the country and overthrew the Taliban, there were only two Jews still living in Afghanistan, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

“According to self-estimates by these communities, there are approximately 3,000 Sikhs, more than 400 Baha’is, and 100 Hindu believers,” reads the report. “There is a small Christian community; estimates on its size range from 500 to 8,000. In addition, there are small numbers of adherents of other religious groups.”

As CNSNews.com reported earlier today, there are no public Christian churches left in Afghanistan, according to the State Department. The last Christian church was razed in 2010. (more >>>)

This is funny, in a sad, pathetic kind of way:

Jewish Virtual Library – In 2005, there were two Jews in Afghanistan. Zebulon Simentov and Isaac Levy lived at separate ends of the same decaying synagogue in Kabul. The synagogue was built 40 years earlier and probably avoided being destroyed by the Taliban because it was unassuming, deserted, and in disrepair. Simentov and Levy said they were protecting the synagogue, and each claimed to be the rightful owner of the Torah and accused the other of stealing it. This feud was so heated that both men spent time in Taliban jails for charges they brought against each other, and were beaten with electric cables and rifle butts. Meanwhile, the Taliban confiscated the Torah. Levy relied on charity to get by, while Simentov, 41, owned a store that sold carpets, jewelry and handicrafts. Both men said they got along with their Muslim neighbors.

Levy said he wanted to join his family in Israel, but couldn’t afford to leave. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Jewish groups offered to help Levy emigrate, but he refused. In January 2005, Levy died.

Now Simentov is the last Jew in Afghanistan. In 2001, he said the Taliban stoll all his supplies and he had to close his store. He says he now has nothing and lives “like a dog.” He has devoted himself to trying to recover the Torah stolen by the Taliban, and enlisted the help of the U.S. Embassy and Afghan Interior Ministry. He said he was told the man who stole the Torah is now in U.S. custody in Cuba. Simentov’s wife and two daughters live in Israel and, after Levy’s death, said he was considering joining his family.

A Belgian filmmaker made a documentary about the two Jews. Here is a clip of the now deceased Isaac. It’s pretty funny. The two of them really didn’t get along, but one wonders if their spats were half in jest.

U.S. State Department: Christianity officially eradicated in Afghanistan

“This is what democracy looks like!”

There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. It’s only a matter of time before the U.S. State Department can boast of the same for Iraq, Libya, and Egypt.

CNSNews.com – There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.

This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.

In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan’s new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country.

The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the Statet Department’s latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and covers the period of July 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, also states that “there were no Christian schools in the country.”

“There is no longer a public Christian church; the courts have not upheld the church’s claim to its 99-year lease, and the landowner destroyed the building in March [2010],” reads the State Department report on religious freedom. “[Private] chapels and churches for the international community of various faiths are located on several military bases, PRTs [Provincial Reconstruction Teams], and at the Italian embassy. Some citizens who converted to Christianity as refugees have returned.”

Afghan villagers stone Taliban commander to death

The only hopeful news I’ve heard in years out Afghanistan.

(NYT) (h/t Weasel Zippers) — Angry villagers stoned to death a local Taliban commander and his bodyguard in southern Afghanistan Sunday after the militants killed a 60-year-old man accused of aiding the government, Afghan officials said.

It was a rare reversal of brutality aimed at the Taliban and, some Afghan officials believe, suggests a growing sense of security in an area where the insurgency has lost ground to NATO forces in the last two years. The stoning happened in the Nawa District of Helmand Province, a verdant agricultural area along the Helmand River Valley, now considered one of the safest places in the volatile south as a result of a heavy influx of American troops and aid dollars.

“People won’t tolerate the Taliban’s barbaric actions anymore,” said Dawoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province. “They will stand against them whenever they are harmed.”

The stoning occurred a day after insurgents in the northeastern province of Kunar stoned, hanged and shot two Afghan National Army soldiers returning from leave, Afghan officials said. The attacks were unrelated and happened far away from each other, but they underscored the grisly nature of the insurgency even as NATO officials say overall violence in the country is beginning to show a sustained downward trend for the first time in five years.