there was no immediate urgency that the men would be harmed or moved, and that the kidnappers mostly wanted ransom....
The raid and the death of a British commando will probably add to the Afghan war’s deepening unpopularity in Britain....
A poll yesterday showed that slightly more than half of Britons do not think British troops should have been sent to Afghanistan."
A "staged, Jessica Lynch story" gone wrong?
And BEWARE of the FALSE FLAG TERROR EVENT, world -- because the GLOBALISTS NEED ONE!
"Commandos rescue Times reporter in Afghanistan" by Jason Straziuso and Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writers | September 9, 2009
KABUL --During the first two days' of captivity, The New York Times reporter and his Afghan translator were optimistic about being released. Then more Taliban came to the hide-out and taunted the captives about an Italian journalist who was freed while his Afghan interpreter was beheaded.
The menace grew -- until British commandos launched a rescue raid. The reporter survived; his Afghan colleague died in a volley of gunfire as he shouted "Journalist! Journalist!" Four others, including a British soldier, also were killed.
Stephen Farrell, who was not injured in the rescue Wednesday, is one of a half-dozen foreign journalists to be kidnapped in Afghanistan over the last several years. His Times colleague, David Rohde, was abducted by militants south of Kabul last November and eventually escaped his captors while being held in Pakistan.
Yeah, READ HOW HERE!
Pfffffffftttt!!!
Now I'm SUSPICIOUS of THIS ONE! Wouldn't you be?
The kidnappings illustrate some of the obstacles for reporters in covering an increasingly lethal war. August saw a record number of U.S. troops die in combat, and bombings wounded three journalists embedded with them: two from The Associated Press and one from CBS Radio News.
Farrell, 46, exposed himself to a different danger. He and his 34-year-old translator, Sultan Munadi, ventured without military escort to the site of a NATO airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers in a Taliban-controlled area of northern Afghanistan to interview villagers about civilian casualties from the attack.
Wow, that sure was brave of him, but THEY WOULD HAVE COME to YOU!
It was an important story....
I agree. Haven't heard back on it since.
The New York Times reported that while Farrell and Munadi were interviewing Afghans on Saturday near the site of the airstrike, an old man approached and warned them to leave. Soon after, gunshots rang out and people shouted that Taliban fighters were approaching. Across the Kunduz river, a group of about 10 militants with Kalashnikovs and machine guns were running toward them.
The Taliban captured the journalists. Their driver fled and notified Farrell's colleagues in Kabul.
The Times kept the kidnappings quiet out of concern for the men's safety, and other media organizations, including the AP, did not report the abductions.
According to Farrell's account in the Times, the captors moved the two men several times and eventually put them in a tiny room. On the third day, some new fighters, apparently more senior Taliban figures from elsewhere in Afghanistan, arrived and discussed moving their hostages out of the Kunduz area....
So he says. We'll see.
Farrell, an experienced reporter who was once held captive in Iraq, thought the atmosphere turned menacing.
Oh, I'M NOT LIKING THIS at all!!!!!! Demonizing Taliban, cui bono, agenda-pusher!? Just like his partner at the NYT!!!
Before dawn on Wednesday, they could hear helicopters approaching. "We were all in a room, the Talibs all ran, it was obviously a raid," the Times quoted Farrell as saying.
The militants scattered, though one returned and tipped his gun toward them and then left again without firing. After a while, Farrell and Munadi went out into a courtyard. With Munadi in front, they ran in the dark along the compound's high mud-brick wall. They heard British and Afghan voices -- and a flurry of bullets.
After moving along the wall for about 60 feet, Munadi raised his hands, walked into the open and shouted, "Journalist! Journalist!" "He was three seconds away from safety," Farrell was quoted as saying. "I thought we were safe. He just walked into a hail of bullets."
A British commando also died in the firefight. Also killed were a Taliban commander, the owner of the house in which the captives were held, and an unidentified woman, said Mohammad Sami Yowar, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor....
That's where my printed paper ends it (as blog editor shakes his head).
Farrell, a dual Irish-British citizen, said he then dived into a ditch....
WOW! The ZIONIST PAPERS NEVER SAY DUAL Israeli-American citizen, even though we have so many on government and media!
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the operation was carried out after "extensive planning and consideration," and that those involved knew the high risks. Brown called the mission "breathtaking heroism."
Whatever, Gordo.
--more--"
Website had this "update."
"Raid rescues captive reporter; Times writer’s Afghan aide is killed in chaos" by Eric Schmitt, New York Times | September 10, 2009
WASHINGTON - Britain ordered a predawn commando raid in northern Afghanistan yesterday to rescue a British reporter for The New York Times and his Afghan interpreter after Afghan agents learned that the Taliban were planning to move the hostages into Pakistan, a senior Afghan official said.
Really, NYT?
The raid by British special forces and.... dozens of Taliban fighters died....
Uh-huh.
Farrell said yesterday in a telephone interview from the British Embassy in Kabul: “I did think they were going to kill him.’’
A senior American military official in Washington said that the United States provided intelligence assistance and had helicopters and attack aircraft at the ready, if needed, but that the operation was planned and carried out by British commanders and civilian officials....
Yeah, this is STINKING MORE and MORE!
No op for THIS GUY, huh? Whatever happened to him, anyway?
The Times of London reported on its website that Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain personally approved the raid. But other British officials said Brown gave only general authorization to the military to rescue Farrell, who has dual British and Irish citizenship....
Farrell, speaking to colleagues at the Times, said that he and Munadi were moved several times a day amid the cornfields, rice plantations, and mud-brick villages in the Char Dara district over their four days of captivity. In the first two days, he said, they felt optimistic that they would be released.
Farrell said his captors delighted in showing off, at one point driving to within about 1,500 feet of Afghan government and NATO watch towers, gleeful at their daring.
The more I read the more I smell set up.
Oh, I believe people died, that's REAL, but the rest... I don't know!
Think I trust the NYT?
--more--"
LONDON - The British government yesterday defended its decision to mount a rescue raid in Afghanistan that freed a kidnapped New York Times reporter but left dead his Afghan assistant, a British commando, and possibly Afghan civilians.
Here we go!
Yup, the heroic raid wasted a bunch of people when it WAS UNNECESSARY!
The operation in northern Afghanistan, carried out early Wednesday, was authorized by the British defense and foreign secretaries, who had kept close tabs on the effort to locate journalist Stephen Farrell and his interpreter, Sultan Munadi.
Well, that's NOT TALIBAN LAND, wtf?
Farrell, a dual British-Irish citizen, and Munadi were kidnapped last week by the Taliban during a reporting trip to Kunduz province.
Gee, they are REALLY PUSHING THAT!
British officials said the decision to send in commandos was taken only “after extensive consideration and planning.’’
*************************
Some observers are questioning whether the two men’s freedom might not have been won in a less costly fashion through ongoing negotiations, including the possible payment of a ransom.
Others accuse Farrell of acting recklessly and endangering not just himself but his colleague by going into an area known to be perilous. The two men were abducted Saturday while reporting a story on a NATO airstrike in Kunduz last week that blew up two fuel tankers and killed scores of people, many of them apparently civilians.
Before dawn Wednesday, British commandos and Afghan troops raided the house where Farrell and Munadi were being held. Farrell has described the pandemonium that ensued as making it virtually impossible to distinguish friend from foe....
The raid was reportedly judged necessary because of fears that the Taliban might move their hostages over the border to Pakistan. But The Times of London yesterday quoted unnamed sources in Kabul as saying that there was no immediate urgency that the men would be harmed or moved, and that the kidnappers mostly wanted ransom.
After the raid, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain does not make substantive concessions, including paying ransoms, to kidnappers.
The raid and the death of a British commando will probably add to the Afghan war’s deepening unpopularity in Britain, which has committed the most troops, about 9,000, to the effort after the United States. A poll yesterday showed that slightly more than half of Britons do not think British troops should have been sent to Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, local journalists mourned the loss of one of their own, paying their respects to Munadi’s grief-stricken family and laying flowers on his grave in Kabul.
A group called the Media Club of Afghanistan condemned the Taliban for kidnapping journalists but also directed anger at Western forces, which it accused of a maintaining a double standard in their treatment of foreign and Afghan nationals.
Yeah, I know all about the hypocrisy (and lies); it is quite distressing to the thinking American.
The organization “holds the international forces responsible for the death of Mr. Munadi because they resorted [to] military action before exhausting other nonviolent means,’’ a statement from the group said....
Hey, that is the ONLY ARROW we got in the QUIVER!!!!
--more--"
We left his body in the road?
Time for it all to GO AWAY NOW, right?
Putting the Kunduz Massacre in Context
