Taliban militants pose with their weapons as they drive their car in Maydan Shahr, Wardak province, on September 25. (AFP/File/Sharif Khoram)In The Hands Of Afghanistan's Taliban, Life Is Cheap
-- Yahoo News/AFP
-- Yahoo News/AFP
WARDAK PROVINCE, Afghanistan (AFP) – "We will behead him," threatens a 25-year-old, self-proclaimed Taliban, as day-long negotiations on the fate of a shopkeeper abducted five days ago reach a critical point.
Four worried-looking male relatives of captured Abdul Ahmad sit with their backs against the wall in a house of a low-level Taliban commander in a part of Wardak province where the militants are in control, not the government.
There is no way these humble men, who have arrived from the town of Ghazni just a few dozen kilometres (miles) away, can meet the ransom demand of 12 PK machine guns and ammunition or the equivalent in cash -- roughly 1.4 million Pakistani rupees (17,000 dollars), the preferred currency here.
One resignedly repeats an Afghan expression: "If a whole city costs one rupee and you don't have it, you can't buy it."
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My Comment: This type of thuggery is not supported by the mass majority in Afghanistan. If the Afghan and NATO security forces can get their act together .... these Taliban gangs will be the first to go.