do I really have to say it???
Posted on 09/01/2007 7:11:21 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
S.Korea paid over $20 mln ransom-Taliban
By Saeed Ali Achakzai Reuters - Saturday, September 1 11:34 am
SPIN BOLDAK (Reuters) - South Korea paid Afghanistan's Taliban more than $20 million (9.9 million pounds) to release 19 missionaries they were holding hostage, a senior insurgent leader said on Saturday, vowing to use the funds to buy arms and mount suicide attacks.
The freed hostages flew out of Afghanistan on Friday to Dubai en route for South Korea.
Seoul denies paying a ransom, but critics say negotiating with the Taliban sets a dangerous precedent that could spur more kidnappings -- which the Taliban have vowed to carry out.
"We deny any payment for the release of South Korean hostages," an official at South Korea's presidential Blue House said on Saturday in response to the Taliban claim.
But the Taliban disagreed.
"We got more than $20 million dollars from them (the Seoul government)," the commander told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "With it we will purchase arms, get our communication network renewed and buy vehicles for carrying out more suicide attacks."
"The money will also address to some extent the financial difficulties we have had," he said, but did not elaborate.
The commander is on the 10-man leadership council of the Islamist Taliban movement, which is led by the elusive Mullah Mohammad Omar.
He rejected an Afghan government claim that a senior Taliban leader, Mullah Brother, was killed in a U.S.-led operation on Thursday in the southern province of Helmand.
"This report is just propaganda," he said.
The South Korean Christian volunteers, part of a group of 23 missionaries kidnapped in southeast Afghanistan in mid-July, arrived in Dubai on a chartered United Nations plane overnight and were due to fly on to Seoul on Saturday.
The Taliban killed two male hostages, while two women released earlier as a goodwill gesture have already flown home.
CONSTANT FEAR
Some of the released hostages on Friday told of how they lived in constant fear for their lives and were split up into small groups and shuttled around the Afghan countryside to avoid detection.
One Taliban member would tend to a farm by day and then grab a rifle and stand guard over hostages at night.
The kidnapping was the largest in the resurgent Taliban campaign against foreign forces since U.S.-led troops ousted the Islamists from power in 2001.
The Taliban decided to free the hostages after Seoul agreed to pull all its nationals out of the central Asian country. They dropped their main demand that a group of prisoners held by the Afghan government be set free.
If a ransom was paid, some say it will make Afghanistan more dangerous for foreign nationals who already curb movement for fear of abduction either by the Taliban or bandits. Some embassies and aid organisations impose curfews on foreign staff.
"If it has happened, for sure it puts us in a difficult situation as it will encourage other kidnappers to take foreign hostages," said one Afghan government official, asking not to be named.
Seoul had already decided before the crisis to withdraw its 200 engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of 2008. Since the hostages were taken, it has banned its nationals from travelling there.
They will spend the money for their campaign to drive out foreign aid organization, destabilizing the country. Anything Roh's government is into leads to one disaster or another.
Dear God... why don’t they just give them our F-16’s?!
for $20M they could have hire some black ops and got a bunch of taliban killed too
Nothing so stupid as those who will not learn. I guess Roh thinks he can avoid all harm by staying neutral.
Tell that to Belgium, Luxemborg, Holland, Denmark, etc. circa 1941.
There ought to be laws against paying ransoms to kidnappers. My other question is, what the heck were 23 civilians doing in Afghanistan anyway?
60 Suspected Afghan Militants Killed
"KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghan police and foreign forces killed around 60 suspected Taliban fighters, many in the region where the insurgents recently released a group of South Korean church workers they had been holding, authorities said Saturday."
But I have never been able to get real harsh over a reluctant cave-in. The S.K.'s hung tough for a long time, even after two of their folks had been killed. Sometimes it is just impossible to stick with the wise, long-term view when people are in this kind of a jam.
Remember when the Left used to shriek that Reagan and North "traded arms for hostages?" I never bought into the criticism. Some situations are just so horrible that I just feel sorry for the people who must struggle with them.
do I really have to say it???
“South Korea paid Afghanistan’s Taliban more than $20 million (9.9 million pounds) to release 19 missionaries they were holding hostage, a senior insurgent leader said”
They may have paid that, but this information is coming from “a senior insurgent leader”. His statements are self-serving.
As soon as the hostages were safe, South Korea should have sent thousands of soldiers to Afghanistan with the intent of killing those responsible!
This is a different world then it was years ago. The good is weak, while evil (Taliban and Islamic Terrorists) is strong.
Too bad this isn’t the good old days when there were real men in charge and things got done. The West is run by a bunch of pansy butt liberals. Bush has gone downhill and has made terrible descisions lately.
My guess is that some S.Korean company paid for them and will be reimbursed with a sweet heart contract.
Attaboy South Korea.
I don’t know if I am right. I just don’t trust info coming from the enemy. And maybe they were paid as part of a set- up to get these Taliban to reveal their location in order to kill them. I don’t know.
South Korea is a long time ally and in many ways has been America’s best friend on the Pacific Rim for decades = assume they’re lying
Taliban is America’s sworn enemy and an actively terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of America and the rest of Western civilization = assume they’re telling the truth
Amazing.
Resources for more dead coalition soldiers thanks to
South Korea.
Good job guys.
Keep your people out if you can’t deal with the reality
there.
South Korea vehemently denies this.
I don’t know the truth, but I do know that if I was the Taliban, and I’d just released some hostages, I sure would claim I’d been paid. What a great way to spread divisiveness among my enemies.
I don’t see that with Afganistan so much better off than under the taliban and so much freedom given to their people. It’s sad that you don’t hear and see all of the great things that are happening in Afganistan and Iraq. The msm is falling down on the job badly.
We have reasons to distrust Talibans. On the other hand, I also have reasons to distrust S. Korean government. This pay-off allegation now has a potential to become a major political scandal in S. Korea. Many here have been suspecting government pay-off.
” I also have reasons to distrust S. Korean government”
I know. I don’t trust them either.
Sheesh!
Suspecting?
Well, hell, I thought that there was no basis at all for believing the terrorists instead of our allies. Now I understand. Please accept my apologies for thinking that you guys were reacting without any solid evidence. I should have known better — after all, this isn’t DU.
WHAT?!? Japan is America's best ally in Asia. We share common interests with South Korea in that we both oppose the North Korea regime, and we are somewhat wary of Chinese and Russian interests in the region. Keep in mind we don't have friends in the world, but we have allies who share at least some of our interests.
But Japan has no army to back that up, while South Korea does have an Army (a pretty good one too).
You’ve GOT to be kidding! Did you forget to add the “sarcasm” identifier.
South Korea has fought right next to the U.S. forces in every conflict we’ve engaged in since the end of WWII. Prior to that time, they were suffering under Japanese occupation for decades.
Japan, of course, has no real military, but even if they did, they would never, ever have fought beside U.S. troops unless their own national security was in jeopardy — that’s very clear. And, since the 60’s, their pacifist elements have succeeded in closing all significant American military presence in Japan.
I repeat, and am deadly serious, South Korea has been America’s best friend on the Pacific Rim for decades - only the Philippine Islands history keeps me from saying they’ve been our best friend in that region forever.
Those people are not friends.
Financing/Arming our friggin enemies!!!!!
Let’s get out of Korea by 2010.
I suspect that you are a young buck who took occasional naps in history classes.
What the SK government did was very wrong to negotiate with the terrorists, period, whether they paid any ransom or not as the rumors suggest. I do understand why they did it, IF they did it at all. You see, Coreans have this klanish mentaliy... One of their own is in trouble, the entire 48 million Coreans suffer together. Just as they felt collective shame when that evil bastard murdered the 32 innocent young here. And they all share this common pride when one of “their own” do good, i.e., a golfer Choi, a skater Kwan, etc., just as he/she is their own family member. But that does not excuse them from negotiating with the bleep bleep terrorists.
Japaneses are not our friends, my FRiend. They declared economic war on US since WWII and they have been winning a lot of the battles. They are very good at copying things. Their own language is a simplified copy of the Chinese language, for example. Have you seen the Chevy Z series trucks that the toyota and honda and whatever else from there came up with? Blatant copy cats, they are.
BTY, for those of you who will surely point out that I spelled Corean wrong, you have to be a Corean to understand it.
PINg
I recently read a statement by a Taliban spokesman in a Korean newspaper. He said something to the effect that “this method (kidnapping) has proven effective, so we will certainly consider using it again.” Wish I could find the exact quote.
Spreading the Word of God.
Yup. First Italy then Korea.......
I have nothing against Christians engaging in missionary work, but the fact remains that Afghanistan and Iraq are both very dangerous places for non-Muslims. Any such people who go there without taking adequate security precautions are not only putting themselves in danger but are also endangering the mission because our troops now have to focus on freeing hostages in addition to killing more enemy scumbags.
How many more of our troops will die, and how much longer now will we have to be in Afghanistan now that the enemy has $20 million more to work with?
There's a shocker.
Thanks for the ping!
It’s odd how this discussion devolved so quickly into an assessment of the relative value of our allies. Hate to remind folks that the French are our allies, too — nominally, but that they are (and getting better under the new leadership). If you look at it the other way around, the U.S. is a pretty tricky nation to be allied with. But that’s other peoples’ problems, and not ours, so screw it.
Who’s seriously going to measure the value of the South Korean friendship based upon this one (possible or not) event? Think: what were those missionaries doing there in the first place?
We should honor the S. Korean penninsula for having held high an unyielding beacon through an otherwise dark, dark past century.
Thanks for your input, Nicollo. It doesn’t take much for people to ever so passionately declare, “NUKE’EM!” or “GOD BLESS THEM!” depending on the current topic posted without considering the entire history/background, etc.
But then again, this is the internet where people can hide behind their screen names and be an ignorant bully one moment and be a thoughtful human being the next, depending on their mood at the time.
The French did help us in the past, (duh?), but I am guilty of poking fun at them since 9/11 and I shouldn’t have.
Oh, Roh sucks... He sucks Kalifornia lemon, man. But he no more represents the Coreans than Klintoon did Americans when he was the woody prez.
SO NICE to have a voice of reason here. Thanks friend.
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