The Face of Evil

Suspected Taliban fighters gouge out an innocent man’s eyes:

The following is all cut-and-paste news:

By NOOR KHAN

Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —

Armed assailants attacked a man and gouged out his eyes in front of his family during a gruesome assault in southern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.

Sayed Ghulam, 52, was recovering in a hospital in the country’s largest southern city, Kandahar.

Ghulam said three armed men knocked on his door in the Sangin district of Helmand province late Thursday. When he opened the door, they punched him in the face, put the barrel of a Kalashnikov rifle in his mouth and gouged out his eyes with a knife in the presence of his wife and seven children.

“I was crying, along with my children and wife, who was screaming for help, but they didn’t listen,” Ghulam told The Associated Press from his hospital room in Kandahar.

Ghulam, a farmer who said he raises wheat and popcorn, said he doesn’t know why he was attacked. “I don’t have any enemies. But they were not letting me talk. They put the AK-47 in my mouth and they were punching me.”

Daoud Ahmadi, spokesman for Helmand’s governor, blamed Taliban fighters for the attack, saying the militants often kill innocent Afghans.

“This guy Ghulam was just a normal man, a farmer,” Ahmadi said. “I don’t know what kind of heart these killers have.”

But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi denied that Taliban fighters were involved.

“Whenever we carry out an attack we claim responsibility,” Ahmadi said. “We didn’t gouge out this man’s eyes.”

Ghulam, whose head is almost completely wrapped in a large white bandage, said his attackers were wearing black turbans on their head like many Taliban fighters, but said he didn’t know who carried out the attack.

Taliban militants sometimes carry out harsh punishments for people they accuse of being thieves or “spies” for the Afghan government. Such punishments include having hands cut off or being tarred and paraded publicly, but there have been few recent reports of people having their eyes gouged out.

Meanwhile, in a province near Kabul:

More than 1,000 Afghans protest Taliban killings

By FISNIK ABRASHI – 2 days ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — More than 1,000 people shouted anti-Taliban slogans in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, protesting the slayings this week of 26 young men from their community by militants in the south.

The unprecedented demonstration in the eastern Laghman province was one of the largest anti-Taliban gatherings since the fall of the hard-line Islamist regime following the U.S. invasion in late 2001.

On Sunday, Taliban stopped a bus in southern Kandahar province’s Maiwand district, a militant-controlled area, and killed 26 of the passengers — beheading at least six of them. A Taliban spokesman said the men were targeted because they were members of Afghan security forces.

But Afghan officials disputed that any soldiers were on the bus, saying the Taliban insurgents had killed innocent civilians who were on their way to find jobs in neighboring Iran.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans cross illegally into Iran every year, seeking jobs and refuge.

Protesters from Laghman’s Alingar district — where most of those killed came from — shouted “Death to Taliban” and “Death to killers” in the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam. They waved black flags in a sign of mourning.

“They were innocent people, trying to find jobs, and they killed them,” Abdul Wakil Attock, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said about the victims.

The protest in Laghman, a province next to Kabul, underscores the growing rivalry among Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan that also form the core of the Taliban fighters.

An anti-Taliban protest by Pashtuns, like Friday’s, will likely provide the U.S. and other international forces with an opportunity to exploit the rift to drive a wedge between the insurgent group and the civilian population.

Separately, a U.S. coalition raid in Paktika killed three insurgents Thursday; four others were detained, the coalition said in a statement.

The troops were targeting an insurgent leader accused of facilitating the movement of foreign fighters and weapons throughout eastern Afghanistan.

The region borders Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt, which the U.S. says militants use as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks in both countries.

There has been a spike in violence in Afghanistan this year. More than 5,200 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency-related violence, according to figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.

Hat tip: CJ, who writes:

Don’t fall for the mantra that “they don’t want us there” or “our presence makes them want to kill us.” Having been there myself and speaking to troops deployed almost daily, I can tell you this simply isn’t true to a large degree. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are quickly becoming extinct thanks to the mercy and justice of American troops and the murderous extremism of theirs.

Other recent Afghan War on Terror news at Long War Journal