Taliban fighters reclaim Afghan province - 11 Jun 09

[AbuUsama]

Taliban fighters reclaim Afghan province - 11 Jun 09

The Taliban is spreading its control in Afghanistan, introducing new checkpoints and taxes to parts of the population.

A new supply route for coalition forces is meant to run through the area, which is apparently under the Taliban's control.

An Al Jazeera team has just returned from the province of Kunduz, close to the Tajikistan border. David Chater has this exclusive report.

Source : AlJazeera

[AbuUsama]

Al Jazeera journalists released


Wednesday, June 17, 2009
21:51 Mecca time, 18:51 GMT


Qais, left, and Shah had been kept at the intelligence headquarters in Kabul for three days

Afghan authorities have released two Al Jazeera producers who had been kept at the intelligence headquarters in Kabul for three days.

Qais Azimy, a senior producer at Al Jazeera English channel, and Hameedullah Shah, from the Arabic service, were freed around 11:30GMT on Wednesday.

The producers were detained on Sunday, two days after Al Jazeera aired a report on Taliban in Kunduz province on June 11 that was produced by Azimy.

The report showed a Taliban leader saying he had hundreds of men under his control and 12 suicide bombers waiting to strike.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, said: "Freedom of the press is respected and allowed and guaranteed by Afghan law. But promotion of terrorism in the name of the freedom of the press is a violation of the press and freedom of the press.

"This government is a democratic, institutionalised government ... but the story that Al Jazeera produced from Kunduz is something we must pay attention to."

Campaigning for the presidential elections started on Tuesday, with the growing strength of the Taliban being a central issue.

'Balanced report'

David Chater, who filed the report for Al Jazeera, said: "Intelligence forces ... accuse us of producing something that is unbalanced, with no government representative.

"That is clearly untrue. We interviewed, at the same time, the commander of the German forces in Kunduz, and he put his point across very clearly. That was a balanced report.

"They also accuse us of shooting essentially what is fake material, staged action from the Taliban. Qais Azimy and myself know the difference between fake footage and real footage. We did not."

Azimy was detained after being advised to come to the intelligence headquarters for an interview, while Shah was picked up from Al Jazeera's bureau by two officers.

Source :

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/06/20096171744407868.html

[Abu Najm Muhammad]

Subhan Allah!

The kuffaar don't want any news getting out about the successes of the Taalibaan. The kuffaar don't want anybody to get inspired by their tenacity and commitment to the fight, even 8 years later.

May Allah aid the Mujaahideen and grant them victory over the enemies of Islaam....

[Aseerun]

May Allah preserve our brothers Qais and Shah, ameen.

We need more journos like them!

[Abu Maryam PK]

I doubt the authenticity of this tape for two reasons:

1) The petrol station showed had the logo of PSO: Pakistan State Oil. Everyone knows PSO does not operate beyond pakistan

2) Taliban dont listen to music. u can hear the instruments at the end

3) Taliban never imposed a tax.

Of course karzai's puppet govt is limited to kabul, bu looks like aljazirah is just looking for ratings here. the video cud have been easily filmed in pakistan

[waziri]

I doubt the authenticity of this tape for two reasons:

1) The petrol station showed had the logo of PSO: Pakistan State Oil. Everyone knows PSO does not operate beyond pakistan

2) Taliban dont listen to music. u can hear the instruments at the end

3) Taliban never imposed a tax.

Of course karzai's puppet govt is limited to kabul, bu looks like aljazirah is just looking for ratings here. the video cud have been easily filmed in pakistan

Asalamualaykum,


Interesting observations Akhi Abu Maryam, I must say with points 1 and 3 I agree ,point 3 could be just the expected propaganda that we are so used to, designed to malign the mujahideen which is no surprise and nothing unusual.Point number 1 is difficult to explain, could it be that they just took any old footage and put it together for this report?If that is the case then that is very shoddy journalism on the part of al Jazeera.

But as for point number 2 I couldn't hear the music at the end of the nasheed, even after listening several times.A lot of pashto nasheeds are made with the voice changed nowadays so I dont know if that is what you have mistakenly assumed is music, I don't know maybe your right and maybe Im wrong but I couldn't hear and musical instruments,I think it was just the voice change thing that is being used a lot in pashto anasheed.

Allah hu alim


wasalam

[Logic lover]

Is taxation of farm produce not part of the Islamic taxation system (which seems to be the case in the report)?

[Student_of_Knowledge]

1) The petrol station showed had the logo of PSO: Pakistan State Oil. Everyone knows PSO does not operate beyond pakistan

AFGHANISTAN: Subsidised Fuel Trail Winds Back to Pakistan

...Fuel from Pakistan comes to Afghanistan in two ways, explains Karim Momand, oil manager for Azizi Hotak, a leading petroleum company in Kabul. Pakistani petrol, particularly from Pakistan State Oil (PSO), a state-run oil company, is sold tax-exempt to fuel traders who then legally export the product to Afghanistan...

...An official with the Tryco International Inc., a Kabul-based oil and logistics company, says that his company purchases fuel from PSO and supplies it to the U.S. military for its efforts in Afghanistan. "Some of this may be subsidised fuel and some sold directly to the company without subsidies," he says. The company, which won a nearly three million dollar contract in 2007 to procure and supply fuel to coalition forces, has spent millions purchasing petrol from PSO, he adds.

The Tryco, which registers sales of up to 50 million dollars per year, is PSO's "exclusive agent representative for Afghanistan," according to the source. While Islamabad generally does not comment on such partnerships, earlier this summer a senior official said NATO forces and private contractors are importing around 726,000 litres of subsidised fuel into Afghanistan every day. "Pakistan is losing around 32.5 million rupees (4.5 million dollars) daily due to such exports" and smuggling of fuel to Afghanistan, an unnamed source at the Pakistan Petroleum Ministry told the ANI news agency. ...

[AFGHAN TALIBAN ZINDABAD]

Asalamualaykum,


Interesting observations Akhi Abu Maryam, I must say with points 1 and 3 I agree ,point 3 could be just the expected propaganda that we are so used to, designed to malign the mujahideen which is no surprise and nothing unusual.Point number 1 is difficult to explain, could it be that they just took any old footage and put it together for this report?If that is the case then that is very shoddy journalism on the part of al Jazeera.

But as for point number 2 I couldn't hear the music at the end of the nasheed, even after listening several times.A lot of pashto nasheeds are made with the voice changed nowadays so I dont know if that is what you have mistakenly assumed is music, I don't know maybe your right and maybe Im wrong but I couldn't hear and musical instruments,I think it was just the voice change thing that is being used a lot in pashto anasheed.

Allah hu alim


wasalam

Neither could I. I listen to Taliban Nasheeds often and must say, it is quite rare to hear instruments being played in the background.

Waziri Saheb, you are absolutely right. Today, they love to make the voice reciting the nasheed sound like an echo, some like for it to sound more like a robot (don't know how else to describe the sound of the voice), and some like to make it sound very high pitched as it sounds younger, more energetic, and perhaps inspirational.

No music though.

I too agree with point 1. As for point 3, I can't agree in its entirety because tax was charged but only on import/export items.

[Abu Maryam PK]

JzK brothers. It seems i was wrong. Elementary, my dear watson.