Taliban beheadings & hangings in Afghanistan

The Forgotten War Still Rages

• Let's see, we declared victory and are leaving Afghanistan, but no one remembered to tell the Taliban that they lost.
• Now the same political morons that took us into Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Somalia can't wait to take us to war in Iraq and Syria.

The Taliban beheaded 12 Afghan civilians, mostly family members of local policemen, in an assault that was part of a week-long offensive that has so far killed 60 people and wounded scores of people.

However, a Taliban spokesman in Ghazni province denied the reports of beheadings and civilian slayings, insisting the insurgents were only fighting Afghan forces there.

The violence comes amid the annual Taliban offensive, which this year will be an important gauge of how well Afghan government forces are able to face insurgent attacks before the withdrawal of foreign combat troops at the end of the year reports the Boston Globe.

According to the Ghazni provincial deputy police chief, Asadullah Ensafi, the Taliban Thursday captured and beheaded 12 civilians and torched about 60 homes in an attack in the district of Arjistan.

There are no NATO troops in the district.

‘‘We don’t have the time for this [beheadings] while we are fighting,’’ Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf told Associated Press by phone. ‘‘These reports are baseless and a lie.’’

The offensive in Ghazni comes as Afghanistan readies to inaugurate the country’s new president, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who officially takes over from Hamid Karzai on Monday.

During the past week, the Taliban have been attacking several villages in Ghazni’s Arjistan district, Ensafi said, and battles in the area were still raging Friday, he said.

On Friday morning, the Taliban detonated a car bomb outside an encampment where about 40 Afghan policemen were based in Arjistan, killing at least 8 policemen, said the province’s deputy governor, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi.

Ahmadi, who also confirmed the beheadings, said that attack and the car bombing brought the overall death toll in the Taliban offensive in Ghazni to 60. The victims included both civilians and police officers, he said.

Afghan villagers hang Taliban fighters

Afghan villagers hanged four captured Taliban militants from a tree on Saturday as security forces battled the insurgents for a sixth day in a district of Ghazni province, an official said.

The hangings were carried out after Taliban fighters had killed more than 100 people in the area in the past week, including more than a dozen who were beheaded, according to Ghazni deputy governor Mohammad Ali Ahmadi.

The battle in the Ajrestan district of Ghazni, southwest of the capital Kabul, is part of an escalation of Taliban attacks around the country as the militants take advantage of dwindling U.S. air support as foreign forces leave reports The Star.

The assault by an estimated 700 Taliban fighters began about six days ago but Afghan army commando reinforcements and the threat of NATO air strikes have so far prevented the district from falling under Taliban control, said Ahmadi.

Heavy fighting continued on Saturday in Ajrestan, in the far west of the province.

The four captured militants were handed over to residents in Arzakai village, according to Ahmadi, who also uses the name Ahmadullah Ahmadi. It was unclear who handed the men over to the villagers, or why.

Army commandos supported by aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition arrived on Friday to help local army and police, Ahmadi said.

"Coalition jets were in the air, but they did not bombard the area because of fears of civilian casualties," he said.

Foreign forces' air support will end entirely after international combat troops leave Afghanistan at the end of the year.

British Fortifications, Kabul in 1879
From 1839 to 1919 the British fought three wars in Afghanistan with near zero real results.  But politicians and soldiers love to play war and refuse to learn the lessons of history on the limits of military power.  Now these same moronic "leaders" want to jump back into Iraq and Syria.
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(Battle of Kabul 1879)

Officers of the 10th Hussars at Jellalabad - 1879
South West of Jellalabad in North Eastern Afghanistan.
See The Battle of Futtehabad.