Taliban said to use human shields.
Not only storing weapons in mosques (!) and schools, but using people as shields. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise -- it's what Saddam did, after all, so we've seen it before (although, as I recall, even he didn't stoop to hiding weapons in mosques). I wonder if hearing about such behavior might lessen the distress in other Middle Eastern countries about the bombing.
Given the behavior described in the article, it looks rather like there will be a battle for Kabul. And it will probably be extraordinarily gruesome. (And then we'll have to sit there and figure out some way to restrain the Northern Alliance from behaving as they did before while the UN gets itself together and composes a peacekeeping force. Drawn principally from other principally Muslim countries, it is to be hoped; I suspect Afghans would tolerate that slightly better. But unless we actually have major forces on the ground and involved in the battle, I can't see how we're going to prevent Kabul from being sacked. Not that there's much to sack, but there are, after all, still a few people to abuse.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!