Reuters (via MoneyToday, Korean), quoting Afghan government officials, reports that military operations to rescue the remaining 21 Korean hostages have begun.
A Cheong Wa Dae official said the government is trying to confirm the report, and that Seoul has never agreed to a military operation. He noted that Seoul’s opposition to a military operation remains unchanged.
I guess we’ll be learning what’s going on in the next couple of hours.
PS: I don’t want to comment on an unconfirmed report, but if operations are underway, I can only hope and pray for the safety of the hostages.
UPDATE: Here’s the English-language Reuters report.
UPDATE 2: Afghan Islamic Press and AFP (via the Chosun Ilbo, Korean) report that reports of the start of a rescue operation are mistaken. The Afghan Defense Ministry said it was true fliers were distributed concerning military operations in southern Ghazni province, but that the operations were nothing more than regular training operation set to begin in two to three weeks.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
Good. I hope this is true.
Take them out. I’m against a “war on terror” because I don’t think it exists, nor would such a “war” ever end, but quick and decisive against terrorists and criminals wherever they rear their ugly heads – that’s what is necessary.
Good luck!
Way to go. I hope the Taliban come in for a world of hurt. Saw the news on BBC about an hour ago (9pm KST). Am I correct in assuming the troops are NATO?
The story is all over the wires, so it looks legit.
I pray the operation is successful and all the hostages and their rescuers emerge safely. Regardless of the outcome, I applaud the courage of those taking part in this mission and the government and military officials who made this difficult decision.
If true, those hostages will die in a few hours. Dropping leaflets that they’re coming.. hmm.. that’s not quite an element of surprise. It will take minutes, hours to find where those hostages are exactly positioned, but it takes Talibans only few seconds to rake the hostages with AK-47′s. It’s regrettable that Seoul has waited this long for this to happen, trying to negotiate with the Talibans which ultimately turned out futile.
That’s why we love you, cm. Your optimism is infectious.
Optimism, pessimism, or reality?
Let us hope for the best for those involved – the hostages, the soldiers, the Afghan people in the vicinity who might very well also be seriously affected…
Excuse me for saying it, but if they make it out, it’s yet another reason for them to pay some serious restitution. Imagine if you did something that led to another country’s government to order people completely unrelated to you to risk their lives in a combat zone, just to save you. They don’t know you, you’re a foreigner in the country, …. anyways, you guys know the rest.
Do I have to post the obligatory “I hope everyone gets out safely” crap? Or, worse: “I hope those taliban get what they got comin”?
“Do I have to post the obligatory “I hope everyone gets out safely” crap?”
Sincere good wishes are not “crap.”
It’d be interesting if the Afghans rescued them, and then arrested them for prostyletizing until Seoul paid for the cost of their rescue.
Reuters has just withdrawn its news alert announcing the start of a rescue operation:
“ADVISORY – ALERT “OPERATION TO RESCUE KOREANS BEGINS IN AFGHANISTAN” IS INCORRECT AND IS WITHDRAWN”
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP38357.htm
hwarang… not that IS interesting. i like that idea.
sonagi… sorry about your delicate sensibilities. of course you’re being sincere. i just don’t have a lot of patience for platitudes, especially in BS scenarios like this one. let me give you this: I hope that the world turns wonderful, absolutely no one is killed or maimed in this “operation,” and that those 21 assholes get to come back here and live the rest of their lives with albatross around their necks to remind them of the truly stupid thing they’ve done and the hurt and damage it’s caused to so many.
but first, i really do like hwarang’s idea.
mjw, I think you need to watch Dr. Phil
” sorry about your delicate sensibilities. of course you’re being sincere. i just don’t have a lot of patience for platitudes, “
No delicate sensibilities, friend. Just because you don’t like platitudes doesn’t mean others should avoid voicing good wishes. To each his own.
The BBC is reporting that fighting has broken out between Afghan military and Taliban forces, but that the government denies a rescue operation is underway:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6926038.stm
MJW:
What else do you suggest we should post here in this situation, other than sincere wishes for a good outcome ?
The Reuters report has been withdrawn with this terse notice:
ADVISORY-Afghan rescue operation story withdrawn
(Please be advised that the GHAZNI, Afghanistan, datelined story reporting that an operation to rescue 21 Korean hostages held by the Taliban had begun is wrong. The official cited in the story did not make the comment reported. There will be no substitute story.)
I’d say it is worth stipulating good wishes for the hostages if only to “foolproof” one’s comments from attack by those who would accuse anyone with a critical thought of being Taliban sympathizers or wishing death on the misguided missionaries.
Golly, more hostages for the Taliban.
Paraphrasing the stupidity of this story:
“Although we have no reason what-so-ever too, and every reason not to, regardless we’re taking this opportunity to announce to the world that we are launching an high risk, nearly impossible operation to free the hostages. Being that this mission ultimately hinges on secrecy first and foremost, please nobody tell the Taliban, thank you.”
now, granted that military operations are just chain reactions of incompetence with the winner being determined by whoever made the least serious mistakes with environmental and preexisting variables read:advantages/disadvantages) taken into consideration; believing that any military would be stupid enough or so brazenly overconfident as to blanket the area with leaflets warning those living there (including the Taliban as they roam around and pick up these leaflets) that a rescue operation is underway and to stay indoors is ridiculous.
this could be one of three scenarios
1. (claimed and most likely) they are talking of another exercise
2. It was a psyops operation to test how the Taliban will react or push their buttons (and a very irresponsible one at that)
3. There was a real mission, an Afghan official had them dropped in the interest of saving lives in light of recent innocent Afghani death due to collateral damage, and the action resulted in the cancellation of such mission because of cover being blown. But then that begs the question where did the politician find the capacity to draft, print, cut, prepare and package for aerial distribution these leaflets on short notice.
Most obviously its number one, but regardless all result in the conclusion that there is no mission.
This only confirm my theory that journalists are generally presumptuous morons living in a fishbowl created by their own elitist world views.
I have a hard time believing it was the Afghans giving hards-up for an exercise.
First of all, do you HAVE exercises in a war zone? Why? Especially ones so big and well-prepared that you drop leaflets for in advance?
I also doubt the Afghans are so clever as to engineer a PSYOP campaign just to test the psychological response of the kidnappers.
The last option mentioned above is so stupid I can’t even imagine an Afghan military commander thinking it was a good idea.
I think the most likely is that the Afghan’s dropped leaflets ALL OVER THE PLACE saying something like “We are coming to rescue the Korean hostages! Surrender now and we’ll let you live!” and some reporter picked it up and reported it as gospel.
Too bad, though.
thumbs-up, instead of “hards-up.” I’m not looking at porn, I swear….
I also doubt they are a functional psyops unit… but who is saying that the Afghans engineered it? Of course the problem with this is that it assumes whoever did this was somewhat competent, and that’s rarely the case.
The last option is on the absurd side, I readily admit such. However, keep in mind that politics in this region is nothing but a thin veil of administration covering up anarchy… and I certainly didn’t limit it to military commanders.
Well I don’t see how Afghanistan really has a choice. The entire country with exception to Kabul is a potential war zone, where else are they going to train new soldiers? Italy? And you have got to have exercises, soldiers don’t just train themselves in their barracks (although sadly the Warrior Leadership Course in Korea appears to be an attempt at just that… but then again the USFK is some weird f’d up combination of Sesame Street meets Orson Wells)
#23
Anyone remember the ‘EZ-Up…for Men’ billboards of 10 years ago?
As I said two weeks ago, I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this. Without outside military intervention, it would be hard for the Taliban to say to the muslim world that they killed 18 helpless women. Now with military intervention, they can easily tell everyone that 18 women were killed during the crossfire.
I can imagine it now. A Taliban spokesman saying, “Hey, mistakes happen during war, just like those supposed ‘smart bombs’ leveling entire towns.”
Ref #25.
Without “outside” (meaning US/NATO) military intervention, there would be no Korean missionaries in Afghanistan in the first place (unless you can tell me with a straight face that there was an active Korean Christian missionary presence in Afg. prior to Nov 2001).
I guess these young missionaries (and those who sent them — were they really there for just a 10-day (!) mission?) must have thought that Afghanistan would be as secure for their work as is the ROK, given the US presence. Nevertheless, I object to your characterization of them as “helpless” — surely they weren’t considered “helpless” when they made the decision on their own to go to Afghanistan. Whatever were they thinking?
Sigh. The Taliban don’t really need an excuse to kill “helpless” people, given their recent active sponsorship of the “surge” of suicide bombers, car bombs, and remote controlled IEDs in Afghanistan — clearly an attempt to emulate these tactics as employed in Iraq (which in turn came from Palestinian/Hezbollah tactics used against Israel).
I recently got around to watching the movie “The Battle of Algiers” (1965) all the way through and I was struck by one of the Arab insurrectionist’s pronouncement that they have to use terror bombing because they lacked the French helicopters, jets with bombs, etc. This movie was made in 1965 so that means that this common Arab justification for such tactics has been around at least since then (I have an idea that the original idea may have been copied by the Arab intellectuals from the Irish revolution –ref the movie Michael Collins).
This implies to me that you accept the moral equivalence of the two opposing sides (US/NATO/Afghan govt, vs Taliban). If you consider these Taliban tactics “legitimate” why not just come out and say so? The US uses a smart bomb, the Taliban/AQ use human smart bombs, all same-same and thus the necessity for thinking persons to tut-tut about it.
To a modernized person from a Western country, I guess the lines have blurred somewhat between the sexes. Let’s put things in the right cultural light and walk in the Taliban’s sandals for a mile (we might as well as they are the ones holding the guns at this time). The differences between men and women mean more to people in this part of the world then from the part of the world that you and I are from. Why do you think the first two deaths were men, huh?
Personally, I don’t think the Taliban wants to wholesale kill 16-18 women. These women would be viewed as “helpless” in the Islamic world. Yes, women are treated rather like possessions in many backwards Islamic countries, but Islam does have strict rules regarding their treatment in combat situations. That’s something that the Taliban, being a strict Islamic organization, cannot ignore. Again, it’s no accident that we are finding the dead bodies of men at this point.
However, my point is this. Given the fact that the Taliban has separated the hostages in different locations and they are surrounded by armed men, any military means to free them has a high probability of not working. If the Taliban has to fight it out, then these hostages become a short term liability. Plus, they probably don’t have any negotiation value anymore since it will become abundantly clear that they won’t be able to get anything for them because the authorities that be have simply decided to attempt to take the back by force. Thus what are your alternatives if you are the Taliban? The alternative is to escape. Kill the hostages because they have no more value and they are just dead weight if you want to travel quickly, then melt back into the hills or popluation of the town or where ever they originally came from. Then the Taliban can just tell everyone that the hostages died in the confusion of all the fighting and have a basis for blaming all their deaths on the Afghan government! I am not debating the right or wrong of all of this. I’m just spelling out a scenario if I was thinking like the Taliban.
# 26
According to this article, the first real use of car bombs was in Palestine in 1948 – pioneered by the Zionist Stern Gang.
Years ago I looked through my Grandmother’s documents and found Obituaries from her relatives in England. One undoubtedly dates from around 1948, because on the back was a bit of a news article about what would now be termed a terrorist attack in Palestine by Zionist extremists. It was hard not to appreciate the irony.
It would be cool to see Korea’s 707 regiment take these fuckers out (with requisite US logistical, whatever, blah-blah back up. Wouldn’t it? If they do it like SAS or GIGN, then maybe some hostages can be saved. If they do it like Russian special forces… maybe not.
‘Without outside military intervention, it would be hard for the Taliban to say to the muslim world that they killed 18 helpless women.’
Hard, yes, but not improbable. If they can justify their actions through the Koran, whatever act is perpetuated would not be viewed as a crime, but as an act of faith. And selling faith/murders, including that of women, infidels no less, to the muslim world is not something that has not been tried before. Ask any Armenian. For the Taliban, coming across the 23 hostages is something akin to coming across a buried treasure. This entire situation is a simple illustration of two opposing and equally irrational and ridiculous monotheistic religions coming up against each other. That being said, I do hope it is resolved peacefully. I also hope that the leaders of this particular Christian group are called to task, and that this will be a wake up call to anyone insisting on going through life with a naive blind faith in absolute nonsense.
Soondae – ‘equally ridiculous religions”: hear, hear!
And to preempt inevitable squawks about “tolerance” from Christian posters:
You continue to love – and praise as endlessly loving – a God who (according to your book) burns people like us in hell for eternity! When we atheists wouldn’t want any of you to burn even for five minutes!
Incidentally, I see the families of the hostages are comparing the place in Seoul where they are all gathered to Auschwitz, because whenever a hostage is killed, two or three people (parents and relatives of the dead hostage)depart. I suppose this is an improvement over the usual Korean attitude to the Holocaust, i.e. “Weren’t those Nazi uniforms sharp?”, but equating leaving a place to go home to leaving a place to be gased is odd. Can’t blame the families for saying whatever comes to mind in these harrowing times, but the press should be more careful about what it prints.
Herod,
A lot of Taiwanese and Japanese think those Nazi uniforms are hot also.
WangKon:
True. But the odd thing about Koreans’ love of Adolf and Co. is that the Nazis were allied with the hated Japanese.
(Taiwan, remember, looks back fondly on its colonial period in comparison.)
Herod, Republic of China, Chiang Kai Shek and Kuo Min Tang and the whole caravan were allied with Nazi Germany before Imperial Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Wei-kuo
My point exactly – it is therefore not so odd when the Taiwanese like Nazis as when the Koreans do.
Ugh… tired.
I’ve already looked into this earlier.
Go to here:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/07/20/nazis-in-korea/#comment-97680
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/07/20/nazis-in-korea/#comment-97713
No you haven’t looked into this; in neither of the links you loftily refer me to, as if to an authority, do you explain the contradiction between a) the Koreans’ enthusiasm for Hitler (not just Nazi uniforms; see Henderson’s reference to the popularity of Mein Kampf on Korean college campuses as far back as the Rhee era) and b) the fact that the Nazis were allied with the hated Japanese.
This contradiction is all the more striking when you consider that anti-Americanism is often attributed to America’s perceived closeness to Park Chung Hee. (And will soon no doubt be attributed to America’s closeness to Karzai.)
“My point exactly – it is therefore not so odd when the Taiwanese like Nazis as when the Koreans do.”
Odd or not, the German Permanent Representation (it is not an embassy, as Germany does not recognise Taiwan as a country) in Taipeh kicked up an enormous fuss about the omnipresence of Nazi symbols in Taiwan…
You mean the “umgekehrte Hakenkreuzen”?
Backward Nazis’ll never learn!
Nice quip, pa.
#37,
You should read a bit about Yi Pom Sok, the liaison between the Nazis and the Chinese Nationalists.
Metropolitician goes into some detail in the following post.
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2006/04/the_gates_of_th.html
Sorry, #38, not #37
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