So what kind of moral figure is running the Taliban's insurgency now?

Recall that on May 12, the Taliban lost their axe-murdering genocidal-maniacal commander, Mullah Dadullah. Now according to The Jamestown Foundation's analyst, Waliullah Rahmani, the person in charge of the Taliban-led insurgency in southern Afghanistan is none other than Mansoor Dadullah, the deceased's half-brother.

So when did Mansoor enter the picture? Well, after he was released by the Afghan government in the deal carved out with the Italians to win the release of journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

Oddly enough, a "well informed" source, Waheed Mujda, told The Jamestown Foundation that Mansoor wasn't the Taliban leader Mullah Omar's ideal candidate.

According to Mujda, Mullah Omar wasn't exactly thrilled about Mansoor because he apparently opposes the overuse of beheadings and executions. Given the familial relationship, he felt Mansoor would be just as ruthless.

But as Mujda went on to tell The Foundation, apparently the OBL crew's view of his qualities trumped any hesitation on the part of the Commander of the Faithful. As Mujda put it: "Al-Qaeda leaders think that Mansoor has his brother's qualities and therefore should be supported."

While Mujda said he didn't think Mansoor was, in fact, as ruthless as the brother was, no less than Mansoor himself went on record (Al-Jazeera) to state that rest assured, he would indeed continue with his brother's tactics. True to his word, suicide bombings and executions have continued apace in Afghanistan.

Now I wonder when the Commander of the Faithful will no longer be able to live with himself for protecting these monsters at his own peoples' peril. And when will the Italian government issue their final report about the ultimate cost of their hostage release? Now I guess they'll have to wait until Mansoor is taken out of action for the final numbers.

Bad news for the Taliban, but good news for the locals in Afghanistan

From the London Daily Telegraph:

The Taliban's much-vaunted spring offensive has stalled apparently due to lack of organisation after dozens of middle-ranking commanders were killed by British troops in the past year, according to military sources.

According to the Telegraph, this is because the Taliban are mourning their recent losses. Their genocidal axe-murdering commander, Mullah Dadullah, was the 1,000th Taliban to have been killed in recent months.

It's too early to declare victory, however, as military sources reportedly told the Telegraph that the Taliban may well be plotting a wave of summer assaults.

But in Helmand, the locals are no longer intent on killing British forces. Once they were able to establish for themselves that British forces were neither interested in raping their women nor stealing their poppy crops, as the Taliban had led them to believe, they have for the most part laid down their arms. Consequently the British forces in the area can now get on with some much-needed infrastructure projects, such as road building.

Would you be considered normal in Pakistan?

Take the following test.

What would be your first thought upon hearing that someone blew themselves up in a crowded restaurant in Peshawar, Pakistan at lunch time and killed 22 people, including two women and a child?


If the first thing that came to mind was this must have been an act of retaliation for the recent killing of the genocidal maniac Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, consider yourself normal by Pakistani standards. According to the New York Times, this was the first possibility local police thought to discount.


But revenge wouldn't explain why this was the third such suicide bombing to hit this neighborhood just this year, bringing the total death toll from suicide bombings to 69.


According to police, what would explain this recent spate of bombings, would be a "reaction to the prevalent geopolitical scenario in the region,” as police chief Sharif Virk told The Times. As the Times goes on to explain:

Pro-Taliban militants are thought to have staged a series of suicide bombings in Pakistan in recent months, apparently in retaliation for airstrikes on their camps and compounds in the border area, and in opposition to the support of the United States by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.

How to explain why the bomber targeted a restaurant frequented by Afghan refugees and hospital workers?


Here is where the revenge theory comes in. As the Times reports:

Witnesses and the police said the restaurant’s owner was an Uzbek of Afghan origin and was affiliated with a former Uzbek warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose posters adorned the walls.

Afghan refugees of various ethnic groups and political factions have lived largely peacefully in Peshawar for nearly 30 years, but militants sympathetic to the Taliban are opposed to General Dostum, an important leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

Police denied reports that the bomber had left behind a note. According to the Times:

In interviews, Mr. Virk and other police investigators said all that they had recovered were the bomber’s legs.

“There is no suicide note or any writing on the legs,” said a police superintendent, Qazi Jamilur Rehman, who is the head of the investigating team.

Genocidal axe murderer - a.k.a. Taliban commander - killed in Afghanistan

"Top Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah" was killed in Afghanistan, reports the Associated Press.

Now who exactly was this guy? According to the AP, he was "a one-legged fighter who orchestrated suicide attacks, beheadings and an ethnic massacre."

As the AP goes on to write, "Dadullah's particular brand of cruelty was unmatched [even] inside the Taliban":

Dadullah's men videotaped beheadings of Afghans suspected of cooperating with international forces or the Afghan government, and the suicide bombers he is believed to have commanded have killed or injured hundreds of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police, as well as dozens of international forces.

In 1999 he led a Taliban massacre of ethnic Hazaras in the province of Bamiyan, where the Taliban in 2000 destroyed two ancient Buddha statues carved into a hillside cliff.

News of his death, not surprisingly, was met with joy - at least in some circles:

"This morning a friend told me that Dadullah had been killed and I wanted to shout out to the people 'Congratulations! Congratulations!' I was so happy I started crying," said Munir Naqshbandi, brother of Ajmal Naqshbandi, the Afghan journalist who was believed to have been kidnapped and beheaded by Dadullah's men last month.

"Dadullah was a cancer on the body of the Afghan people. It is good news for all the people of Afghanistan, not just the Naqshbandi family," he said.

Perhaps even the Taliban might not be mourning his death, suggested Rahimullah Yusufzai, who is described as "a Peshawar-based editor for the Pakistani newspaper The News and an expert on the Taliban." As the AP reports:

Yusufzai said many Taliban fighters had been unhappy with Dadullah, saying he maligned the militant group with his beheadings, a rash of kidnappings and boastful videos that starred himself firing guns and walking in Afghanistan's mountains.

"They thought he had become too big for his shoes," Yusufzai said.

Now that's a real martyr, sacrificing himself for the cause even after his own men had come to despise him.