The Photo Shah shop in Kandahar specializes in gaudily retouched portraits … Despite a religious ban on the reproduction of the human image, many Taliban had their photographs taken, often with close friends. (Credit: The New Yorker)

But don’t let the mascara fool you….in November of 2006, The Independent ran a piece by Kim Sengupta in Ghazni, Afghanistan, entitled Disembowelled, then torn apart: The price of daring to teach girls, recounting in agonizing detail the horrible disembowelling and dismemberment of a teacher who dared to teach girls in school.

The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.

The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.

Naturally, you don’t hear much of an outcry at all from the human rights groups about the terrorists committing these kind of atrocities. They are particularly vicious now, having now borrowed the techniques of Al Qaeda suicide bombers of Iraq.

“The tactics of the Pakistan Taliban are developing similarities to the violence orchestrated in Iraq by insurgents and al Qaeda linked Sunni terrorists,” said terrorism analyst MJ Gohel. “Afghanistan is becoming another killing field for the global jihad movement.”

And we expect it to get worse. With the recent suicide bombing attack on Cheney when he visited Kabul, and other incidents, it’s pretty obvious now that the Taliban wants the Americans and the Coalition forces (Christians) out of Afghanistan. Far be it from me to point that out, though.

Before the Taliban were made up of mostly ethnic Pashtuns from southern Afghanistan. Now, experts say, fighting units are made up of a mix of Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks.

“They are not Afghan. They’re not Pakistani,” according to a senior Afghan official. “They are transnational terrorists, and they are serious radicals.”

Pakistan hotly denies supporting the Taliban, pointing out that it has seen heavy losses. Pakistan has nearly 80,000 troops along the Afghan border.

Experts agree that it may be possible that the Taliban are going it alone thanks to drug money.

So this article points to the fact that the Taliban is profiting from Opium poppies in Afghanistan, and that the Taliban forces are from outside of Afghanistan, just like the terrorists we’re fighting in Iraq. People should get a clue about that.

New tactics for British troops in Afghanistan

KABUL: In the most violent part of Afghanistan British marines are now changing their tactics in the fight against the Taliban.

Based in Helmand Province, Britain’s new military tactic involves fast and mobile armoured convoys and patrols designed to enter the Taliban’s backyard provoking them into fighting.

British forces then hope to defeat the Taliban with their heavier firepower.

The idea is to get away from fixed bases that attract Taliban attacks.

The Afghanistan national police are also involved in the fight to remove the Taliban despite often being accused of corruption and being without the necessary equipment.

It is believed around a quarter of the local population support the Taliban, with poverty often driving people into their hands.

This is an improvement over sitting back with your hands tied behind your back, afraid to engage the enemy and forbidden to travel outside your military base after dark. But with a quarter of the population supporting the Taliban now, it would seem that some other techniques are necessary in order to maintain support for the Americans fighting the terrorists there. If the terrorists get their way, the support for them will grow, as the population complains that the Americans are worst today than the Soviets ever were.