Taliban mutilate Afghans for helping US
By Tom Coghlan in Kabul
Last Updated: 2:36am GMT 19/03/2007
telegraph.co.uk
In pictures: On the Afghan front with the British troops
Taliban militants have hacked off the ears and noses of three Afghan drivers captured helping American forces.
Marine Joe Harvey, from Stafford, right, watches as British forces come under fire by Taliban insurgents near Kajaki in Helmand province
Fighters mutilated the three men seized after delivering fuel to a US base in the eastern province of Nuristan on Saturday.
"After downloading their supplies into a coalition base in Nuristan, they were heading to Kunar," said Ghulamullah, the deputy chief of police in Nuristan, who uses only one name. "On their way the Taliban stopped them and cut off their noses and ears."
It is the first time that such a barbaric punishment has been meted out by Taliban fighters on those suspected of working with foreign forces.
Fuel tankers supplying American bases have previously been targeted by insurgents with the tankers routinely torched and the drivers often left badly beaten.
In October a group of eight Afghan labourers doing building work at a base in Nuristan were shot by the roadside.Dozens of government officials, notably teachers, have been executed in the south and east of Afghanistan in the past year.
Illegal Taliban checkpoints operating on roads in the south and east of the country have been reported to check drivers' mobile phones for foreign names or aid agencies and ring the numbers, executing the owner if a foreign voice answers.
The cutting of noses and ears echoes the Taliban's period of rule in Afghanistan when their government became notorious for its savage and often bizarre interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
Meanwhile, in the southern province of Helmand, confusion last night surrounded the whereabouts of an Italian journalist kidnapped with two Afghan colleagues two weeks ago. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, reported that Daniele Mastrogiacomo and his translator had been passed to local tribal elders yesterday after the Afghan government released two Taliban leaders. The Taliban said on Thursday that they had beheaded the third man, Sayed Agha, claiming he admitted being a spy for British forces. Sayed Agha had previously worked with The Daily Telegraph in Helmand.
However, one source involved in negotiations to free the journalists insisted last night that all remained in Taliban custody.
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