Friday, October 27, 2006

EMBEDDED WITH THE TALIBAN

The BBC's David Loyn, embedded with Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, writes admiringly of those from whose midst he is reporting:
They clean their teeth with sharpened sticks taken from trees, and sleep with only the thinnest shawls to cover them.

They have surprised the British by the ferocity of their fighting and their willingness to take casualties.
Along the way he unwittingly supports the notion the Taliban are using civilians as human shields:
When we stopped for the night, they would break into groups to eat in different houses in a village.

They demand and get food and shelter from places where they stop, but it is impossible to say how enthusiastic the villagers really are.

They say that since they wear only the loose long cotton shirts and trousers - shalwar kameez - of any local villager, then the British cannot easily tell them apart.
Civilians killed by NATO forces suit the Taliban just fine.

5 Comments:

Anonymous saltydog said...

Enemy correspondent.

2:58 PM  
Anonymous Tim Newman said...

They have surprised the British by the ferocity of their fighting and their willingness to take casualties.

Surprised British journalists, maybe. The soldiers knew exactly what to expect.

8:38 AM  
Anonymous Harry Buttle said...

I suspect they actually delighted the British by their willingness to take casualties and further, I also suspect that the Taliban was rather more surprised by the British ability to inflict casualties.

2:07 PM  
Anonymous blogagog said...

Isn't this what Tokyo Rose was accused of? This guy better hope the BBC doesn't fire him, because no one in the real world will.

3:04 PM  
Anonymous David Gillies said...

Every time these savages have come up against the Paras face-to-face they've been slaughtered like cattle. They prefer to skulk in the weeds and snipe.

7:50 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home