Well, I wonder if we are going to redeploy troops, or just cut our losses and sky out. Calls for Jihad come often, but with the US planning to emplace an embargo against Syria and calling on them to relinquish WMD they may or may not have, we are going to quickly alienate the Middle Eastern population far more than the Taliban ever could have. If things continue to go as they have in the last two weeks, we could be in dire straights indeed.
There is another article following the first one. I was looking for another thread in which it might be pertinent, but I have to get to class, so I'm going to drop it here.
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http://www.paknews.com/main.php?id=1&date1=2003-04-15
Taliban Supreme Leader Calls For Jehad
Muhammad Khurshid
Updated on 2003-04-15 07:48:46
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Apr 14 (PNS) - Supreme leader of Taliban Movement leader Mullah Muhammad Omar has claimed that jehad has become obligatory on the Muslims all over the world as anti-Muslim forces have joined hands for their (Muslims) elimination.
“If we do not realize the gravity of the situation then no force on the Earth can save us from catastrophe,” said the Taliban leader in a message circulated among the people in eastern parts of Afghanistan.
He said that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq should prepare themselves for jehad as this was the only way for them to save themselves from brutalities of US forces. “The US forces have perpetrated a reign of terror in the whole world, but the Muslims rulers have been keeping a complete silence, which is very dangerous for the whole Muslims,” the Mullah stated in the message to the residents of eastern Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, according to IRIN report, Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Afghanistan’s volatile eastern province of Khost said that the country’s former hardline Islamist Taliban rulers were regrouping in an effort to step up anti-government militancy. There are fears that this could further harm security in the region and impact on aid work and reconstruction. "We know that they are preparing, but they will not be able to achieve anything," he said, adding that although a lot of reports were being received about Taliban activities, little movement had been seen on ground. 'The reality is that there are increased Taliban-related security incidents compared to the past,” he said. Officials in Khost maintain that recently two Taliban fighters and two government soldiers died in a gun battle in Zhawara District of the province.
However, he maintained that the province was under control. “I do not buy the impression that Taliban can stage a massive comeback, despite their recent attacks,” he maintained. "They brutalised ordinary people, and it’s impossible to win back popular support," he added.
The End.
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http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=2568299
Afghan Commander, Bodyguards, Killed in Ambush
Tue April 15, 2003 08:50 AM ET
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A military commander belonging to the Afghan faction of ethnic Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and two of his bodyguards were killed on Tuesday in an ambush in the trouble-plagued north.
Commander Shahi was driving to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when his car was ambushed in the Char Bolak area about 18 miles to the west, one of Dostum's deputies, General Majid Roozi, told Reuters.
The identity of Shahi's assailants was not known, but Dostum's faction has a tense rivalry with the Jamiat-e-Islami group led by ethnic Tajik Ustad Atta Mohammad.
Shahi, who led about 300 fighters, served for more than 15 years as a commander for Dostum.
Although Dostum and Atta are both members of the central government of President Hamid Karzai, their forces have clashed repeatedly in the past year for control of territory in the north. Shahi's killing came a week after bitter clashes between Atta and Dostum's fighters in Maimana, the capital of Faryab province, in which 16 people, including one of Atta's commanders and two civilians, were killed.
A temporary truce was enforced in Maimana after talks involving officials of both factions and the United Nations, but reports from the town on Tuesday said the situation remained tense and the two factions were prepared for a possible resumption of fighting.
Factional rivalry like that in the north is seen as a key threat to Karzai's government, which has struggled to assert itself in the provinces since it replaced the fundamentalist Taliban regime in late 2001.
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