June 23, 2004

Afghans behead Taliban in revenge for beheadings

Afghan soldiers beheaded four Taliban fighters after guerrillas cut off the heads of an Afghan interpreter for U.S.-led forces and an Afghan soldier, a government commander said on Tuesday.The interpreter and the soldier were beheaded after becoming separated from a patrol of Afghan and U.S.-led foreign troops in the Arghandab district of Zabul province on Monday night, Namatullah Tokhi, commander of the government's 27th division in the province, told Reuters.He said government troops later captured and killed four Taliban guerrillas in the same way.

"They cut of their heads with a knife, so when our forces arrested four Taliban, we cut off their heads too."

This is one very effective, although not very "civilized," way to deal with the "militants" barbarity.
But then in comes our multi-culti, super-caring pals from Human Rights Watch to tell the Afghans that this is a "war crime:"

Summary executions of prisoners were a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and human rights law, said John Sifton, Human Rights Watch representative for Afghanistan.

"If these beheadings actually occurred, it is a very serious incident: the killing of captured prisoners in the context of an international conflict is a war crime," he said.

The soldiers responsible, and the commanders who could have prevented the killings, should be arrested and tried, he said.

Funniest thing, but I haven't seen any press releases from HRW saying the same things about Al Queda's beheadings, either of the Afghans killed, or of Paul Johnson in Soddy Arabia or Nick Berg or of the South Korean hostage Kim (RIP) beheaded yesterday in Iraq--civilains all, BTW.
Maybe as long as AQ doesn't wear uniforms and act like too much of a nation's formal army, HRW and Amnesty International will continue to give them a free pass...or do they just hate America and her friends and allies?