20th Anniversary of 9-11 - TALIBAN IN ACTION-

 Submitted by:  Terry Payne

Just before 20th Anniversary of 9-11 - TALIBAN IN ACTION---- Outside of Kabul

 

As always, if you should wish to forward this very troubling video, please remove my name and address as I have done for the person who sent it to me and those prior forwarders.

 

After days of hesitation and thought, I decided to go ahead and send this video even though there are questions about the provenance, identity of the executioners and location.

 

We are at the 20 year anniversary of the 9-11-01 attack on the U.S. carried out by al Qaeda but with the plotters based in Afghanistan, protected by the radical Taliban. They were driven from power almost immediately (Oct-Dec 2001 before NATO and conventional US forces) by U.S. CIA, and Special Forces along with fighters from the “Norther Alliance”. Al Qaeda was diminished with bin Laden finding refuge in Pakistan along with Ayman al Zawahiri, founder and now leader.

 

Now, 20 years later, after years of sacrifice, loss of US soldiers and investment in trying to bring a more inclusive and tolerant society to the Afghans, the Taliban is back in full control of Afghanistan. We have “withdrawn” in disarray, abandoning key bases, incredible amounts of arms and most terrible of all, US citizens and allies. Sadly, we also condemn innocent Afghan civilians, especially women who enjoyed years of new found freedom, to oppression and worse.

 

Al Qaeda is back with Ayman al Zawahiri pledging a Bay’ah to the Taliban. He had moved from Pakistan to Iran but now may be back in Afghanistan.

 

The attached video is brutal, showing 10 or so kneeling men being executed. If you have a weak stomach, I urge you not to view, but simply read on. Below, you will find observations which suggest this video is real and probably reasonably current, based in part on the flag visible at the start. It may be an ISIS flag rather than Taliban. Even if not a new Taliban flag, ISIS in a fairly recent terror organization emerging in Iraq and Syria after we withdrew from Iraq. Their brutality was well documented.

 

This event is a reminder of what sort of governance and enforcement has been reestablished in Afghanistan, and with their alliances with al Qaeda, the Haqqani network and likely ISIS, the new dangers the U.S. faces. There remains a tie to ISI intelligence service in Pakistan has long supported the Taliban, posing a regional risk as well with nuclear armed Pakistan being radicalized. ISI is responsible for intelligence and spying internally in Pakistan as well as around the world and is a dominant influence on the governance of Pakistan.

 

One reason I am sending is that through another source, other Taliban atrocities are coming to light. It appears absolutely true that unreported by the press and willfully unseen by US government observers, that the Taliban is ferreting out anybody who worked for us or for the former Afghan government. They are confirming their identity with the scanner and biometric data we collected on all such personnel and left behind for the Taliban to use. When found, they are torturing the family in front of the victims before beheading them.

 

This brutal horror should be understood as our government seems intent on offering quiet support funding and ultimate diplomatic recognition of the Taliban, for whatever reason, while also doing nothing whatsoever to recognize or even support the Norther Alliance which fights on in the Panjshir Valley.

 

Some of you won’t believe a word of this, or your eyes if you look at the video. But this is not a reformed or kinder, gentler Taliban, al Qaeda, Haqqani network or ISIS for that matter.

 

It is also enormously troubling that the Afghan pilots who flew their aircraft out to Uzbekistan are now being forced to give up the planes, drones and top secret sensor systems for return to the Taliban. Who could possibly be driving that sick idea?

 

Whoever lies behind this ongoing lunacy deserves to be called what they are. At a minimum, they are collaborating with the very enemy, led by the very individuals and/or their sons, who cooperated with and protected al Qaeda as they planned and executed the 9-11-01 terror attacks on New York, Washington and the plane lost at Shanksville, PA. The excuse seems to be we have gained their cooperation in getting our citizens out.

 

Of course they wouldn’t be trapped there, essentially hostages, had this withdrawal been conducted in any remotely organized fashion.

 

You don’t have to be a military strategist to figure out you get your vulnerable allies, friends, those Afghans vulnerable for loyal service in support of our troops and particularly US civilians out first while keeping key assets active. This would include Bagram, Camp Chapman, Shindand Airbase, the Kandahar facility at the airport and Eagle Base to name a few. Then you go about withdrawing the Embassy after they had destroyed all records, identification of Afghans working to support the new society and all intelligence records. Only then do you evacuate personnel through protected facilities like Bagram, not from a small civilian airport in Kabul. Then you remove or fully destroy any and all useful military and other equipment and close bases and facilities in an orderly fashion, not a frantic flight. Shamefully, we abandoned Bagram and all the equipment in the dark of night without notifying the Afghans or any of our allies. The excuse is that the military was ordered to protect the embassy and couldn’t do that as well as holding Bagram.

 

We might have even been wise enough to keep Bagram, a defensible outpost, as a listening post and base for operations in a major part of the world in which we now have no resources and no facilities and inevitably will be largely blind and deaf to critical developments of danger to our national security. Worthy of note, as we display disorganization and lack of resolve, the Russians have been emboldened and gotten the “stans” to deny us bases or listening posts in their territory. This means we are basically shut out of a major portion of the world in which hostile countries and groups are found.

 

As you can see from the comments from others below, this horrible video has been widely forwarded with various comments added. If you doubt this video, there are a number of others readily found by searching for video of Taliban executions, beatings and abuse of women, especially former female police, on line. The foreign press is running with these. The US seems not to be willing to show them, although there was a brief mention of the earlier execution of the surrendering Afghan Rangers, seen in a video on line and some mention of the female policeman stabbed to death in front of her family.

 

The video attached is very difficult to watch and I hesitated to forward, both due to the violence and glee of the killers, as well as the lack of provenance. The identity of the dozen or so victims isn’t given, nor the specifics of the killing group and mob cheering and celebrating also not given. The title says it is just outside of Kabul but there is no supporting evidence other than a flag visible in the early moments.

 

The Taliban flag is normally white, but this one is black which may indicate an ISIS flag. Both have with words “There is no God but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of God" written in Arabic script. The Taliban flag of 2001 had green script on white, so whether Taliban of ISIS, this appears to be a reasonably current video. If you don’t know what that motto is, it is the Shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam. It is on the official new flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as well as the ISIS flag and for that matter the Saudi Arabian flag which also shows the Saif or Sword of Islam. If you don’t know what the Shahada is, look it up. It is the fundamental pledge taken and recited by all Muslims. Without getting into a long dissertation, note the phrase suggest no recognition or toleration of other religious beliefs, quite consistent with the Qur’an.

 

At the end, you can hear the crowd screaming Allahu Akbar. It means Allah is the greatest. For those of you who don’t know, that was Muhammad’s battle cry as he led a cavalry charge into the town of Khaybar, home to the last Jewish tribe, the Banu al-Nadir which had fled Yathrib (which was renamed Medina a contraction of City of the Prophet) after Muhammad turned on the three Jewish tribes, there for 600 years. He accused them of failing to adequately support him in an earlier battle with the Quraysh who he was trying to replace as rulers of Mecca.

 

That seems enough to conclude these are Islamic terrorists although doubters will say anybody could have had the flag or this could have been an older video or a photo shopped video.

 

The video purports to have been shot by a Chinese camera crew travelling with a Taliban squad searching for people who worked with the prior government and/or the US and NATO allies and executing them. If this is a current video, it is a ghastly view of what radical, jihadist, Salafist Islamist thugs do with evident glee and pleasure and that to which the Afghan population has to look forward. The wild firing into the bodies after the executions is all you need to know. Evidently everybody wanted a piece of the execution and innumerable celebratory shots are delivered.

 

Make what you will of it. It might just remind you of the savagery of 9-11, the heroic response of many on that awful day and the sacrifice of many over two decades which did prevent another major mass casualty successful attack on the US homeland. One can only hope we can somehow intercept and prevent a similar horror in the future.

 

XXXXX--Capt. USNR-Ret