Sign Up | Log In
REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
Oh, yeah, let's make peace with the Taliban -- most recent suicide bombing
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 7:42 AM
NIKI2
Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...
Quote:Ali Omar and his son Ali Omar had returned to Kabul for a visit. The father had moved to the U.S. years ago and the son was born there. On Tuesday, they were having dinner by the pool of the Intercontinental Hotel in the Afghan capital where they were staying during their trip. It was a festive evening with several parties of well-to-do Afghans celebrating birthdays and other occasions. Then came the sound of gunfire. "The police told us it was some kids messing around and not to worry about it," says Ali Omar the younger, the owner of an Afghan restaurant in Fremont, California. "Then the gunshots kept getting closer and closer." His father adds, "At first, it was one or two shots from far away. After 15-16 minutes it was wild. War. Everyone was escaping." Nine Taliban fighters had entered the heavily fortified Intercontinental Hotel in a brazen attack on foreigners and Afghan provincial officials who were in town to prepare for the wind-down of coalition forces set to begin in July. Once the intruders got past three heavily defended security checkpoints up a winding road and into the hotel — still decorated in a decaying, late 1970s style of plate glass windows, marble and heavy velvet curtains — there was chaos. Ali Omar the restaurant owner began videotaping what he saw. "I recorded it up to the point where a guy came in and started shooting into the crowd, then it was a free-for-all," he says. The video shows police standing on the pool deck with AK-47 rifles. People walk by the camera and Omar points out a policeman who he said was shot and killed minutes later. The tape cuts off as a loud explosion is heard. Eyewitnesses say about 60-to-70 people, including women and children, were on the pool deck having dinner when men in white headscarves, carrying AK-47s and grenades and apparently suicide vests ran in shouting in Pashto and started shooting. The people on the pool deck all ran and jumped off the back wall, onto a steep, wooded hillside that leads down to a main road. The crowd had to knock down a section of a wall topped with barbwire to make it to safety on the street, according to the younger Omar, who recounted the episode, still in a blood spattered shalwar kimeez. Diners and hotel guests tell TIME the attack began around 10 p.m. Most of the fighting did not end until around 4 a.m., after NATO helicopter gunships killed three insurgents on the roof of the hotel. But the siege only came to a close early in the morning when the last bomber, who had been hiding out in the hotel, blew himself up. The assault left between 18 and 21 dead and 13 wounded, Ministry of Interior spokesman Sadiq Sadiqi told TIME. Local news said nine civilians, two policemen, one Spanish national and nine suicide bombers were killed and that 13 civilians, five government officials and two NATO soldiers were wounded. The Taliban had its official version. The group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tells TIME that "eight suicide attackers entered from the west gate of the Intercontinental Hotel. One of them blew himself up at the gate. He killed some guards and police and destroyed the gate." Mujahid tells TIME that "only 13 foreigners were killed" without mentioning any Afghan fatalities. "The suicide attackers were contacting me while they were attacking and told me how many foreigners they were killing." He continues, "then they heard the helicopters coming. They went to the windows to shoot at them and they were killed by the helicopters. It was around 4 AM when we lost connection with them. Every five minutes they were calling us to tell us about the casualties." The attack came a day after the end of a high-level meeting in Kabul that was preparing for the Bonn 2 Conference, a 50-nation meeting that will be held to discuss the upcoming security transition in July and the withdrawal of foreign military forces in 2014. Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, told TIME that the target of the attack was guests staying at the hotel: governors and mayors from the three provinces and four cities — Kabul, Bamyan and Panjsher provinces and the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Lashkar Gah and Mehtarlam — that will be the first to see the security transitions from coalition to Afghan forces in July. As the transition draws near, the attack on the hotel has only reinforced the belief of Afghans and foreigners that Afghan forces are not ready to take over security responsibilities. "We heard shooting and we saw the police dropping their weapons and running from the area," says Noor Mohammad, a member of the National Directorate of Security who was still in uniform and had been at the hotel for his boss' birthday party. "I can't trust them. How can I trust them? They dropped their weapons because they heard some shooting. How can they ensure security for us? How can they fight against the Taliban? No way, I don't trust them at all," he says quietly as he cradled a hand that had been cut by barbwire as he helped his boss' children escape down the hillside. "In any way possible, the program will be successfully implemented. Our enemies know that they don't have the capability to hurt our national intention," said Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, the Chief of the Security Transition Program. "Our country is ready to take any sacrifice necessary on this path," Ahmadzai said today at the government's first security handover conference, Tolo TV reported. But in light of today's attack many Afghans will continue to disagree. Sahel Wafa, an Afghan who now works for a pharmaceutical company in London after having fled the fighting in the 1980s, watched the attack unfold from the roof of his parents' house. He saw the entire assault and the police reaction from his vantage point across the street from the entrance to the hotel. "I don't think they're ready to take over security. I suppose that as soon as the Americans troops leave, you will see a lot of chaos. Not only from the Taliban, but within the Afghan people, the society. I don't think the security forces are ready to take over at all."
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 4:32 PM
RIONAEIRE
Beir bua agus beannacht
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 5:10 PM
KWICKO
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 5:56 PM
NEWOLDBROWNCOAT
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 9:01 PM
FREMDFIRMA
Thursday, June 30, 2011 1:09 AM
AURAPTOR
America loves a winner!
Quote:Originally posted by Fremdfirma: The effective lethal range of every single bit of armament the opponents facing us have, is a couple hundred yards, at best. Last I heard, the Atlantic Ocean is a little wider than that. -F
Thursday, June 30, 2011 1:35 AM
SIMONWHO
Thursday, June 30, 2011 1:39 AM
MAGONSDAUGHTER
Thursday, June 30, 2011 3:00 AM
HARDWARE
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: A NATO helicopter fires a missile on the roof of the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul June 29, 2011. At least 10 Afghan civilians were killed when suicide bombers and heavily armed Taliban insurgents attacked the hotel frequented by Westerners in the Afghan capital late on Tuesday, Afghan officials said.
Quote: Non-Afghan soldiers depart after participating in a military operation against the militants that attacked the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul on June 29, 2011.
Quote: I'm NOT saying we shouldn't leave, just noting that I think trying to have "talks" with the Taliban is a waste of time, an exercise in futility.
Thursday, June 30, 2011 4:07 AM
BYTEMITE
Quote:I get the feeling many of you don't have any idea how wars end, and how these things work. Leaders can be sitting around together sharing tea and crumpets while their soldiers are still killing each other (and killing civilians, let's make no mistake about that), and talks will still proceed.
Quote:In fact they could even become worse just to hold it over us. Saying something like "Look, we're just as hideous as ever and you just gave us power, you are rutting suckers and now its too late, hahahahahahaha". They're snots and they'll probably do that.
Thursday, June 30, 2011 6:15 PM
Thursday, June 30, 2011 9:43 PM
Friday, July 1, 2011 2:17 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Hardware: With the number and quality of the pictures we can't be certain that it is the same building in all of the pictures. However, a minigun, which seems like a frightfully random weapon, is a scalpel when compared to a ground attack rocket or missile. Unless the attackers were in very close proximity to non-combatants I would feel pretty certain that a minigun could take them out without killing everyone on the premises. Of course, that still leaves plenty of room for fog of war. Mis-identification of target as a hostile, or just plain old fog of war. When rounds are incoming you smash everything and sort it out afterwards. Better that the other guy goes home in a bag than you. That may sound needlessly cruel, but that's war.
Friday, July 1, 2011 5:11 AM
PIRATENEWS
John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!
Quote:CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Sunday there may be less than 50 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan, with "no question" that most of the terrorist network is operating from the western tribal region of Pakistan. Panetta's remarks came as President Barack Obama builds up U.S. forces in Afghanistan to prop up the government and, in his words, "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda." About U.S. 98,000 troops [250,000 now] will be in Afghanistan by fall. Asked by ABC's Jake Tapper to estimate the number of al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, Panetta said, "I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. At most, we're looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It's in that vicinity." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4444211
Quote:"And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon." -1 Kings 11:6-7, Christian Bible KJV and Jewish Torah (Luciferian Star of Soloman is the jewish symbol and the Israeli flag) "Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it. And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." -Jeremiah 32:32-35, Christian Bible KJV and Jewish Torah "But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time - it is the most faggy goddamn thing that you would ever imagine with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco." -President Richard "Dick" Nixon, White House audiotape, Nixon Presidential Library, 1971 http://www.prisonplanet.com/032604nixontape.html (audio download) "I'm not going to end up tied down to a Pentagram with Henry Kissenger standing over me naked with his fat belly hanging out, holding a dagger in his hand, am I?" —Alex Jones, from Jones' undercover video Dark Secrets, as Jon Ronson was briefing Jones on how to infiltrate the Grove for British Channel 4 TV http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-82095917705734983 "A circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews has alarmed city health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes - one of them fatal - in infants. But after months of meetings with Orthodox leaders, city officials have been unable to persuade them to abandon the practice. The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b'peh: after removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the wound to clean it." -Andy Newman, New York Times, "City Questions Circumcision Ritual After Baby Dies," August 26, 2005 www.piratenews.org/pedophile-jewish-rabbis-kill-babies.html
Friday, July 1, 2011 9:39 AM
Friday, July 1, 2011 9:47 AM
DREAMTROVE
Friday, July 1, 2011 1:14 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: Hardware, et al: The photos and captions were uploaded from one of the stories, I forget which one. I take no responsibility for their accuracy ;o)
Friday, July 1, 2011 1:17 PM
Quote:Originally posted by dreamtrove: i agree with basically everything Mike has said, to the point where me posting is redundant. Just count Mike's posts times two ;)
YOUR OPTIONS
NEW POSTS TODAY
OTHER TOPICS
FFF.NET SOCIAL