While this is one of the first times these facts have been printed, it is not new - the Taliban, al qaida, and other 'Islamic jihadists' often use the very things they feign to protect as weapons or objects to use and discard. They blow up mosques, churches, and synagogues, yet claim they protect all religious sites.
When the US or the West is forced to shoot at or cause damage to a religious site, all hell breaks loose - we are on crusade, we don't care about their faith, we are invaders and ... and bull shit. They destroy more churches and mosques than the US has in 10 years of war in two countries. They have killed more religious clerics both Muslim and Christian than the US has done in 10 years of war in two countries.
If they want help blowing crap up - we should oblige them. If they so loathe their religion as to use it to kill and murder innocents - they should be permitted to do so, in a closed space, alone with a pig and a dog.
By William Marsden
The Montreal Gazette
August 10, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai met recently with members of the country’s clerical councils to get their assistance in persuading insurgents not to hide explosives in suicide bombers' turbans or in other religious or cultural symbols.
The Taliban, however, appear to have responded by hiding a bomb in a mosque in Kandahar province.
In the last five weeks, suicide bombers have killed the mayor of Kandahar and a senior cleric in the city with small amounts of explosives hidden in their turbans. In both cases, the bombers grabbed their victims before triggering the explosives.
It is believed to be the first time turbans have been used in suicide attacks.
A man’s turban has important religious and cultural significance and it is considered dishonourable to touch it.
Karzai met with clerics this week and pleaded with them to use their influence on the Taliban and other insurgents to dissuade them from using cultural or religious garments to hide explosives.
In the past, insurgents have also used burqas to hide explosives because male guards normally will not search a woman.
“President Karzai believes the clerics have a lot of influence over Afghan society,” Hamed Elmi, a spokesperson for the president, told The Gazette.
He said Karzai believes that suicide bombing and the use of the turban as a bomb “dishonour Afghan society and the Afghan people in the eyes of the world.”
Karzai encouraged the clerics to return to their mosques and preach against suicide bombing and the use of cultural attire in this insurgency war, Elmi added.
In Kandahar City, however, the Taliban have already shown their contempt for the clerical council by killing one of their senior clerics with a turban bomb. So the influence of these clerics, who support the Karzai government and often counter the extreme orthodoxy of the Taliban, is questionable.
In a possible response to Karzai’s meeting with the clerics, the Taliban appear to have hidden an anti-personnel mine inside a mosque in Zharay district in Kandahar province.
Coalition forces discovered the bomb on a shelf in the mosque Wednesday while searching for a “roadside bomb facilitator and attack planner operating in Kandahar City” who had targeted government officials, according to a statement by the International Security Assistance Force joint command.
The forces withdrew from the mosque to discuss with local leaders how “to properly neutralize the mine without harming the mosque,” the ISAF said in the statement.
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