At least 26 members, and 27 according to some sources, of Afghanistan’s People’s Peace Movement (PPM) were kidnapped on Wednesday in the Farah Province, when their convoy of vehicles was captured in the countryside.
The PPM had been holding peace rallies across Western Afghanistan, staring in Helmand and Herat, and recently trying to move into Farah. Afghan officials, and the PPM leadership, are accusing the Taliban of being behind the kidnappings.
The Taliban does have control in the area where the convoy was captured. Yet it’s not clear what the motivation of such an ambush would be, and the Taliban has not issued a statement confirming the incident.
Nor, indeed, has anyone issued a statement on the matter. Concurrently with this incident, the telephone lines in that part of Farah went down, so there is particular difficulty to get information out of this area and figure out what’s happening.
PPM officials reported that local tribal elders have been engaging in talks with the Taliban to try to secure the release of the activists. There is no word out of the area on how this is going, likely because of the communications blackout.
Mind boggling. Kidnap non-violent folks advocating for peace. As much as the #1 terrorist country – the USA, hello – should never have attacked Afghanistan, these pre-middle-ages Taliban murderous nitwits are clearly just a completely abject nazi-like group themselves. God knows what the hell their karma is all about…. likely, they just moved up the reincarnational scale from roaches and rats – still better creatures then they, no doubt!
What is the job description of “peace activist” or in general “activist”. Who is paying fir this activism?
Everybody wants peace. BUT ON WHOSE TERMS?
Activists in this case seem to be advocates for SOMEBODY’s peace terms, clearly not Taliban. And as Taliban live there, and have no other place on earth to be “activists”, I would not have much sympathies for political busybodies dressed up in garb of activism.
None of them — I am sure — is a well meaning person, acting of their own free will, and having own agenda. None of them work for free.
Can we be any more naive! And probably 100% our taxpayers’ money.