a friend in Afghanistan

I don't normally follow much of the news about the troups in the Middle East, except for highlights now and then. THIS, however, is personally relevant - a friend of mine is one of the guys interviewed (the last one). I met him in Egypt in 2005. We were both taking the TEFL course in Alexandria. He actually lied to begin with because he wasn't sure what the reaction would be if it was known that he was in the army. His plan was to get a good experience in an Arab/ME country before he was to be sent there for fighting. While in Egypt, we all had such a great time, and most of us picked up a little bit of Arabic in that first month. I wonder if it helped him. Seth Robson / S&S From left: Air Force Tech Sgt. James Pilkenton, 34, of San Diego, Calif.; Army 1st Lt. Alex Sanchez, 24, of La Mirada, Calif.; and Air Force Capt. Brian Fitzpatrick, 27,of Hoosick Falls, N.Y., climbed a mountain high above the Baylough Bowl to assess security at an observation post on Saturday.

Mountain patrols are tough on U.S. troops
By Seth Robson, Stars and StripesMideast edition, Wednesday, December 19, 2007
ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Death can come by the bullet or by plummeting off a mountainside in southern Afghanistan’s Dey Chopan district.
U.S. soldiers here have shelter, of sorts, from the elements at Forward Operating Base Baylough, 8,000 feet above sea level. The base — a collection of tents, plywood structures and an ancient adobe building surrounded by razor wire and earth barriers — allows a few dozen soldiers from 2nd Platoon, Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment to control the surrounding valley, despite regular Taliban attacks.
On paper, 2nd Platoon — the Mustangs out of Hohenfels, Germany — are responsible for security in all of Dey Chopan district, which is home to an estimated 45,000 Pashtun tribesmen, according to platoon leader 1st Lt. Alex Sanchez, 24, of La Mirada, Calif.
But even with the help of 17 Afghan National Army soldiers and two dozen Afghan National Police officers, Sanchez’s authority is limited to the valley, which soldiers call the “Baylough Bowl.”
“The reality is we are undermanned. We have enough combat power to hold what we have and that’s all,” he said.
In five months, the Taliban have attacked Baylough about 60 times, including an all-out strike in September that overran an ANA observation post overwatching the base. There’s still a hole in Sanchez’s bedroom wall punched by a Taliban rocket fired during the attack.
Dey Chopan includes three other large, high mountain valleys and numerous smaller offshoots where locals run sheep or grow almonds in orchards watered by snow melt. Much of the land is in Taliban hands, and intelligence suggests one nearby valley is home to a Taliban training camp, Sanchez said.
“We know Baylough Bowl is ours. The Nayak Bowl [includes a road leading to another base] so we have been in there. We’ve been into Davudsay Bowl with a larger force. Larzab Bowl we have not gone into,” he said.
Patrols out of Baylough are on foot since most of the terrain is too steep for vehicles. Some of the peaks that patrols climb are almost 10,000 feet high — about as tall as the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze.
“It was hard work when we got here, and it never got easy,” Sanchez said of patrolling at altitude.
As soon as soldiers leave the valley floor they have two options — walking across shifting sands where it’s three steps forward and two back, or clambering over boulders. The soldiers often find themselves literally hanging off cliffs.
“There are times when we are climbing to an [observation post] and when you are hanging onto the rock face, you realize if you fall, you will die,” Sanchez said.
Spc. Christopher Weber, 27, of St. Louis, Mo., said climbing mountains in body armor with ammunition and weapons is hard work.
“It takes a lot of skill to climb. You have to watch every move you make because of loose rocks and steep inclines. When the Taliban start to shoot at you, it’s hard to maneuver and get good positions to advance or egress while fighting,” he said.
Pvt. Gregory Sparks, 19, of Oroville, Calif., fell seven feet on a recent patrol but was unhurt.
“I belly-flopped down into a hole with my arm under my SAW (M249 machine gun). Everybody laughed at me, and then they asked if I was OK,” he recalled.
Sparks had to jump from rock to rock on a recent patrol up a nearby peak.
“Have you seen ‘Cliffhanger’ with Sylvester Stallone? That’s us with gear and weapons,” Sparks said. “We should get a mountain tab because we go up more mountains than all those guys [in units like the 10th Mountain Division]. We are dismounted and climbing mountains and doing what mountain guys do, so we deserve a mountain tab.”

AND

U.S., Afghan troops clash with new enemy
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Friday, December 21, 2007
ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Foreign fighters with military uniforms are attacking U.S. and Afghan government forces in Zabul province using conventional infantry tactics, soldiers report.
Capt. Pongpat Piluek, 33, of Plant City, Fla., who commands Team Apache — a company level task force based around Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment — said foreign fighters are known to be operating near Forward Operating Base Baylough, an isolated outpost 8,000 feet above sea level in the mountainous Dey Chopan district.
Intelligence suggests the foreign fighters are from Uzbekistan and the rebellious Russian territory of Chechnya, in central Asia, he said.
“The foreign fighters tend to be better trained and financed than the average Taliban. They have LBVs (load bearing vests) and canteens and sometimes black or green uniforms,” he said.
During firefights the foreigners use conventional infantry tactics like flanking, bounding and fixing targets, whereas attacks by local Pashtun Taliban are usually poorly executed, Piluek said.
Maj. Sean Fisher, 37, the Task Force Zabul deputy commander and native of Deerfield Beach, Fla., said foreign fighters use Zabul as a transit route to move between Helmand and Ghazni provinces.
Maj. Harry Bird, 44, of Charleston, S.C., who leads a team of Embedded Tactical Trainers out of FOB Lane in Arghandab District, said several Chechen and Uzbek fighters have been killed in firefights with Afghan National Army troops he works with — from 1st Candat, 2nd Battalion, 205th Corps.
Cpl. Jeffrey Treaster, 33, of Harrisburg, Pa., who fights out of Baylough with Team Apache’s 2nd Platoon, said Pashtun tribesmen in the area have reported Uzbek Taliban who ride out of the mountains on horseback.
Second Platoon leader 1st Lt. Alex Sanchez, 24, of La Mirada, Calif., said the Pashtun also report foreign Taliban coming to their villages.
“The locals will say: ‘The guys who came to the village, I didn’t know who they were and when they spoke, I didn’t understand them.’ Locals will say: ‘The Uzbeks stay in the mountains. One or two will come down with a local Taliban who translates and talks to us,’” he said.
There have been numerous attacks on FOB Baylough but some are much better planned than others, Sanchez said.
“You can tell if the enemy are well-trained,” he said. “If their attack is expertly executed, soldiers assume it is foreign fighters. When it is poorly executed, soldiers assume it is locals.”

What have they done???

I don't know if this is true or not, but... if it is... It helped those that were released but not anyone else in the world!

Korea 'Paid US$20 Million to Taliban'
The Korean government paid more than US$20 million in ransom to Taliban kidnappers for the release of 19 Korean hostages in Afghanistan, Reuters and Japan’s Kyodo News said Saturday quoting a senior Taliban figure.
Both news agencies cited remarks by a member of the 10-man leadership council of the Taliban, which are headed by the elusive Mullah Omar. “With it we will purchase arms, get our communication network renewed and buy vehicles to carry out more suicide attacks,” the senior militant figure told Reuters. “The money will also address to some extent the financial difficulties we have had.”
Meanwhile, in an indirect phone conversation with Yonhap News on Sunday, a purported Taliban spokesman calling himself Qari Yousuf Ahmadi threatened to attack the Korean embassy or other Korean facilities in Afghanistan if the country does not keep its promise to withdraw all Korean Christian missionaries from the country by the end of August. Ahmadi said he had information that some Koreans remain in the war-torn country.
(englishnews@chosun.com )

What the Afghan Hostage Crisis has Cost Korea
Digital Chosun Ilbo English Editorial September 4, 2007
The Afghan hostage crisis has ended, but the aftermath lingers. Germany, Canada and other countries are openly criticizing the Korean government for having negotiated directly with a terrorist group. Even though one of its citizens is in captivity by the Taliban, Germany’s chancellor made it clear that her country will not handle the situation as Korea did. The U.S. government drew the line early on, saying it will not participate in talks between the Korean government and the Taliban. It had no intention of violating their principle. Rumors that the Korean government paid a ransom for the release of the hostages are tremendously embarrassing for Korea. Amid all this, the actions by the chief of Korea’s intelligence agency were more suited for a cheesy spy movie.
Korea lost a lot through this incident. Its status has tumbled to that of a nation that openly cuts deals with terrorists. Now, terrorist groups from all corners of the globe will put Koreans on the top of their list as potential kidnap targets, for political or financial gain. With 12 million Koreans traveling abroad each year, this is not an ungrounded concern. The scheduled withdrawal of the Dasan engineering unit and the Dong-eui medical unit ended up looking as if it came in response to the Taliban’s demands. The sweat and sacrifice that our troops gave in Afghanistan over the past five years has gone to waste.
Korea is responsible for punching a gaping hole in the global line of defense drawn against terrorism, giving the Taliban an international stage for its propaganda warfare. Now the militants plan to abduct and kill more nationals from foreign countries whose troops serve under NATO and the U.S. military in the country, a spokesman for the movement warned Monday. With the Taliban in high spirits, the trust the international community had in Korea crashed and burned. For a very long time, Korea will have to live with the disgrace of having pleaded with the government of Afghanistan to free Taliban prisoners and the fact that the whole world found out about it.
Our biggest loss is that Korea has been imprinted in the minds of the international community as a country without principle. Regardless of its size, if a country gains a reputation for protecting principles despite external pressure, then no group will take it lightly. There are many small countries in the world that fit that description and exercise significant influence on the international community. This is the road Korea should take, stuck as it is between the world’s superpowers. But we strayed significantly from this path.
If there is anything we can gain from this incident, it is the realization that whether our country can live up to its principles depends on the actions and character of our citizens. No government or country can endure the challenge posed by 23 people who are kidnapped after disobeying fundamental rules.
The reason why small but respected countries in the world stick to their principles despite unbearable hardships is because they have learned that it is more economical and effective in the long term. Only when its citizens obey fundamental rules can a country gain more respect, and that in turn reduces the cost of living in a rough world.

Korea misunderstanding Islam

I have friends here that are Muslim and they have mentioned that there was a huge protest outside the Seoul Central Mosque in Itaewon and that there was a bit of fighting and stone throwing going on. The Koreans were threatening the Muslims, blaming the recent kidnapping on them. Like the Muslims here had anything to do with it. Most Muslims everywhere have nothing to do with it. There is way too much generalization going on. First it was the Jews, then the Japanese, now the Muslims. Who is next? There have been police outside the mosque since the kidnapping. But here, it isn't really anything unusual, as the American army bases all have Korean soldiers posted outside and some embassies have police or soldiers posted outside the gates. They are everywhere - patrolling; standing guard.

Islam Misunderstood in Korea Due to Hostage Crisis
By Shamim Shahid; Special to The Korea Times
PESHAWAR, Pakistan _ The Korean Muslim Federation (KMF) has urged the Taliban to release the 19 Korean hostages immediately to prove that Islam is a religion of peace and brotherhood.
Suliman Lee Haeng, the Imam of the Seoul Central Mosque, made the remark here during his visit with three other members of the Korean Muslim Federation.
They were visiting in a bid to seek the release of the Korean nationals in the central Ghazni province.
Beside Suliman, the delegates included naib imam, Abdul Rahman Lee, a member Zaki Jeong, and a Pakistani businessman living in Korea, Zulfiqar Ali Khan. Suliman is the director of the KMF and imam of the Central Mosque in Seoul.
Suliman said that the holy month of Ramadan is approaching and for the sake of it the group requests the immediate release of the hostages from Taliban custody.
So far he said the incident has affected the Muslim community in Korea where citizens are growing increasingly suspicious of their activities.
Abdul Rahman Lee said that policemen have been posted at the Central Mosque in Seoul round the clock due to a minor incident involving someone hurling stones in the mosque.
He added that some people also using abusive language against the Muslims and although the number doing it are few in number, Muslims are still affected by it.
The delegation has also met the chief of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam and Maulana Samiul Haq, at his seminary in Akora Khattak.According to them, Maulana Samiul Haq has assured them of his all-out support for the safe release of the Korean prisoners. The delegation said they were advised while in Korea not to visit Peshawar due to security reasons, but they proceeded against such warnings in order to forward their request to the Taliban.
Suliman said that due to such incidents, Islam has been turning into a misunderstood religion in Korea and the rest of the world.The delegation will also meet other religious figures here.
There are about 35,000 Muslims in Korea and before this incident, "we had been preaching Islam in very effective manner," said Khan, a native of Peshawar who settled in Korea about 10 years ago.
While my family or other Muslims, especially non-Koreans, travel on public transport or roam around people look at us sarcastically and some of them even regard Muslims as killers,'' he added.
The 23 South Koreans including 16 women and seven men were kidnapped while riding a bus on July 19 on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. Two of the male hostages were killed and two females were set free. They are the largest group of foreigners to be taken hostage in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power.
Making a desperate request to the Taliban, Suleman said that being representatives of the Muslim community in Korea. "We initiated this visit so as to plead the case of our people and request to our Taliban brothers that these hostages are innocent and they should be released for the sake of humanity."
Zaki also showed some pictures of the Central Mosque where police have been deployed and some busy roads of Seoul where banners were displayed requesting the Taliban to release the hostages.

what about the rest of them?

They've already made the deal. 3 more have been released but what about the rest? Will they wait until the end of the year when the troops are withdrawn???

Taliban free 3 South Korean hostages
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
QALA-E-QAZI, Afghanistan - Taliban militants released three South Korean hostages on Wednesday, the first of 19 captives scheduled to be freed under a deal struck between the insurgents and the South Korean government.
The three, all women, were first handed to tribal leaders, who took them to an agreed location where officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross picked them up, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the hand over.
The three arrived in the central Afghan village of Qala-E-Kazi in a single car, their heads covered with green shawls. They said nothing to reporters, who were asked by Red Cross representatives not to question them.
Red Cross officials quickly took the three to their vehicles before leaving for an undisclosed location.
In Seoul, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said the three, who he identified as Ahn Hye-jin, Lee Jung-ran and Han Ji-young, did not appear to have any health problems.
To secure the hostages' release, South Korea reaffirmed a pledge to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year and prevent South Korean Christian missionaries from working there. The Taliban apparently backed down on earlier demands for a prisoner exchange.
The Taliban originally kidnapped 23 hostages as they traveled by bus from Kabul to the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar on July 19. In late July, the militants executed two male hostages, and they released two women earlier this month.
The insurgents have said they will free the hostages, who they are holding in different locations, over the next few days. Mullah Basheer, a Taliban commander, said that up to seven other hostages would "possibly" be released later Wednesday.
The accord for the South Koreans' release came during one of the bloodiest periods of the Taliban's war against U.S. and NATO forces since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
South Korea's decision to hold face-to-face negotiations with the militants may dismay the United States government, which refuses to talk to the Taliban.
"Maybe they (the Taliban) did not achieve all that they demanded, but they achieved a lot in terms of political credibility," said Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. "The fact that the Koreans negotiated with them directly and more or less in their territory ... is in itself an achievement."
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday that the U.S. wanted the Koreans returned to their families and stressed that U.S. policy was not to make concessions to terrorists.
The deal for the hostages' release was struck during talks between Taliban negotiators and South Korean diplomats in the central city of Ghazni. The Afghan government was not party to the negotiations, which were mediated by the ICRC.
The hostages' relatives in South Korea welcomed news of the deal.
"I would like to dance," said Cho Myung-ho, mother of 28-year-old hostage Lee Joo-yeon.
South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun said the deal had been reached "on the condition that South Korea withdraws troops by the end of the year and South Korea suspends missionary work in Afghanistan."
Cha Sung-min, whose 32-year-old sister, Cha Hye-jin, was among the hostages, said he was "sorry to the public for causing concern, but we thank the government officials for the (impending) release."
"Still, our hearts are broken as two died, so we convey our sympathy to the bereaved family members," said Cha Sung-min, who has served as a spokesman for the hostages' relatives.

More on Korean Christians...

So far, 2 of the Korean hostages have been killed, both men, and now 2 of the women have been released. That leaves another 21 (?) hostages, mostly women.

I found this article today. Very interesting.

...
Seoul is home to 11 of the world's 12 largest Christian congregations, including Yoido, which began Bible classes in a tent in 1958 and now has 800,000 members and a goal of having 5,000 churches worldwide by 2010.
It runs the Osanri Prayer Mountain retreat, where the devout can lock themselves in cubicles for prayer and fasting, and attracts a million pilgrims annually, tens of thousands of them foreigners.

Korean Christians

It looks like many Koreans don't support the Christian hostages in Afghanistan.
I do understand, though. They can get a bit annoying. I have lost count of the number of times I have been approached on the street by Korean Christians (as well as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses) trying to save my soul. They also go door to door. I once had a couple of Korean women knocking at my door. At first I thought it was the land lady, so I opened the door. It turned out to be two Christian women that were going door to door with their bible and pamphlets. Seeing that I didn't speak Korean, they didn't stay for long. But then the next day, another knock on my door. I opened it to find that one of the Korean women had returned with a man that spoke English. They held my door open and kept trying to talk to me about religion. They kept trying to get me to read highlighted passages from their little bible. I told them from the beginning that I am Christian. They said not all those that call themselves Christians know the right path. They kept saying that there was God AND a God Mother. What?? That's a new one. They continued to insist that I believe them and that I should go to their church. They said they wanted to help me save my soul. I said I am Christian. I said I'm not interested. I said I'm busy. I said I have no time. I said I have to go. The kept holding my door open. I was getting soooooooo angry. My neighbor and co-worker Raph heard it all and thought about interceding, but they probably would have just done the same thing to him. Eventually, they realized that I wasn't buying what they were telling me and they left quite unhappy. Not all Korean Christians are like this, but when they are, they go beyond annoying. Some churches have a service every day. Some Koreans go to church every day. Some spend a lot of money.
A good Korean friend/co-worker goes to church every Sunday. She puts up to $20 in the collection plate every Sunday. When she gets paid at work in cash, she always asks for fresh unfolded bills, which she uses to pay several hundred dollars in tithes every month. She says she is paying for her sins. No wonder these churches can afford the things they do.
One of the very first things I noticed in Korea, on the drive from the airport to my new home, was the glow of the neon crosses that dotted the night landscape. I could see a lot of neon lights, but the crosses were the most prominent.

South Korea turns against 'arrogant' Christian hostages

By Daniel Jeffreys in Seoul 04 August 2007
The kidnap of South Korean church volunteers by the Taliban has caused deep divisions back home, forcing into the open a dark truth: many Koreans resent Christians and the speed with which they have become a dominant force in the upper echelons of society.
The captive missionaries - 18 women and five men - who were seized in Afghanistan two weeks ago hailed from the Saemmul Presbyterian Church, which is based in an affluent dormitory town south of Seoul.
After they were taken hostage, the church's online bulletin board was deluged with negative statements. Many called the missionaries "arrogant" for trying to proselytise in a Muslim country gripped by conflict.
When the group's pastor, Bae Hyung-ku, was killed last week, the hostile messages increased and the church decided to close its site rather than endure what a press release from Bae's family called "more hatred and misunderstanding."
But this did not halt the critics. A news bulletin board at Naver, Korea's leading portal, attracted vicious denunciations. "Yes, let's pray for the hostages' safe return, only to see these missionaries kneel down and apologise to the people for the Protestants' arrogance," wrote a man who described himself as a "humanist teacher."
Whang Sang-min, a psychology professor at the prestigious Yonsei University, said: "There is growing resentment toward Christians. Many Koreans feel oppressed by the power of the church."
Korea was a Buddhist country 120 years ago, with only a few thousand Christians, mostly Catholics, who faced intense persecution. By the 1960s, Korea had about a million Christians, but their numbers exploded in the decades that followed.
Christians now make up 31 per cent of South Korea's population. At night, the Seoul skyline glitters with video billboards and neon lights but all the commercial illumination is rivalled by the thousands of bright red crosses that shine from the churches found on almost every street corner.
Korea now has more than 36,000 churches, and many of them are loud and proud with a firm commitment to missionary work and a passionate zeal for evangelism.
A typical example is Somang church in the Apgugeong district, Seoul's equivalent of Knightsbridge. It attracts over 15,000 worshippers every Sunday, and the weekly church collection plate rakes in more than £30,000, much of which is devoted to funding overseas missions. The choir is packed with professional and semi-professional opera singers, and the conservative presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak is a member of the congregation.
Saemmul, the captive missionaries' church, was formed by a breakaway group from Somang and it has grown so big it recently converted a five-storey shopping centre into a new church - the Yeoido Full Gospel church in central Seoul, which has 750,000 regular attendees, making its congregation the largest in the Christian world.
Korea has 16,000 missionaries working overseas, second only to the US.
The chairmen of all South Korea's top-10 companies are Christians, as are the majority of National Assembly members.
If the Taliban kills another one of its hostages there will be great sadness here, but also more anger against Christians. A posting on Naver earlier this week gives a taste of the degree of resentment some Koreans feel: "The missionaries are getting what they deserve," wrote a woman who described herself as a secular Buddhist. "Maybe now some of them will stop trying to ram Jesus down our throats."
Kang Sung-zu, South Korea's ambassador to Afghanistan, has arranged to meet with Taliban forces within the next few days to begin negotiations for the release of the remaining 21 church workers.
The Taliban have already killed two of its captives, but it announced yesterday that no more will be executed before the direct negotiations with Mr Kang take place.