lest we forget about the OTHER war

we're 'winning'

Taliban Torture, Execute 5 Afghan Police
By NOOR KHAN Associated Press Writer
Nov 18th, 2007 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Taliban militants slashed the hands and legs of five abducted policemen in southern Afghanistan and hung their mutilated bodies from trees in a warning to villagers against working with the government, officials said Sunday.
The discovery of the bodies came as officials said that recent violence and clashes had left at least 68 people dead across Afghanistan.
The officers had been abducted two months ago from their checkpoint in southern Uruzgan province, said Juma Gul Himat, the provincial police chief. The Taliban slashed their hands and legs and hung the bodies on trees Saturday in Gazak village of Derawud district, he said.
"The Taliban told the people that whoever works with the government will suffer the same fate as these policemen," Himat said. "This village is under Taliban control. There are more than 100 Taliban in this village."
Two tribal elders received the bodies of the policemen on Sunday, he said...........

UN Report Suggests Afghan Massacre Coverup
Investigation Shows That Most Suicide Bomb Victims Were Also Shot By Lawyers' Bodyguards
Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says only a "small number" of the victims were hit by gunfire, but an Afghan official in Baghlan province told The Associated Press that bodyguards were "raining bullets" on the crowd. The suicide bomb contained ball bearings, the Interior Ministry said, which may have caused wounds that look like bullet holes. An Afghan doctor who treated patients after the Nov. 6 blast, meanwhile, told the AP that a high-ranking government official told him not to publicly reveal the number of gunfire victims, suggesting a possible government cover-up. .......