Afghan soldiers beheaded

[justinsb]

Afghan soldiers beheaded
by
Sunday 10 July 2005 5:36 PM GMT
Some 700 people have been killed in three months of fighting

Suspected Taliban rebels have ambushed a border patrol in the desert near the frontier with Pakistan, killing 10 Afghan soldiers and beheading them all, officials said.

In violence elsewhere in the country, 15 rebels and troops were also killed, the officials said on Sunday.

The beheaded victims were part of a 25-member patrol in southern Helmand province that was attacked late on Saturday by rebels driving four four-wheel-drive pickups, said the province's Governor Sher Mohammed Aghunzada.

"The Taliban cut the heads of all the soldiers who were killed," he said. Aghunzada also said the dead soldiers' bodies had been recovered.

The news comes a day after a purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, claimed that the rebels had beheaded a US Navy SEAL commando missing since 28 June in the mountains in eastern Kunar province, also near the border with Pakistan.

American officials have been skeptical of Hakimi's claim and US military spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said on Sunday that the search for the commando was continuing.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6C88984-5F80-4A5E-8E80-84CCD5FAFB30.htm

[aquart]

1. For fun? Tradition? Why?

[hippywife]

2. My guess?

Because it adds another element of shock for the so-called civilized world.

[WhiteTara]

3. certainly adds to the drama

:shrug:

[justinsb]

4. I heard a taliban official interviewed about this once

before the war. It's tradition and they believe that it is the most "humane" way to execute someone because it immediately severs the nerve endings leading to the brain.

[pocket]

5. it was neither quick nor humane

when they sawed those hostages heads off with a small knife in some of the videos released from Iraq. Maybe the Taliban will be nice and use a sword.