As if live wasn’t hard enough on the Hindu Kush, innocent villagers are being accused as spies and murdered by a Pakistani death squad known as the Khorasan Mujahedin:
Pulling up in caravans of Toyota Corolla hatchbacks, dozens of them seal off mud-hut villages near the border with Afghanistan, then scour markets and homes in search of tribesmen they suspect of helping to identify targets for the armed U.S. drones that routinely buzz overhead.
Once they’ve snatched their suspect, they don’t speed off, villagers say. Instead, the caravan leaves slowly, a trademark gesture meant to convey that they expect no retaliation.
Militant groups lack the ability to bring down the drones, which have killed senior Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders as well as many foot soldiers. Instead, a number of them have banded together to form Khorasan Mujahedin in the North Waziristan tribal region to hunt for those who sell information about the location of militants and their safe houses.
Pakistani officials and tribal elders maintain that most of those who are abducted this way are innocent, but after being beaten, burned with irons or scalded with boiling water, almost all eventually “confess.” And few ever come back…
“In the sky there are drones, and on the ground there’s Khorasan Mujahedin,” said the relative. “Villagers are extremely terrorized. Whenever there’s a drone strike, within 24 hours Khorasan Mujahedin comes in and takes people away.”
Caravans of Toyota Corolla hatchbacks circling villages after a drone strike and then slowly driving away.
Seems like a predictable pattern, and a lucrative target, to me: Kills bad guys and protects innocents.
Win-win.
But, Lex! That would be PROFILING!
Joe, you’re danged straight it would be profiling. And it seems to me that the solution/prescription for this disease is a dose of one Hellfire missile in the lead driver’s ear.
Then rinse and repeat as needed until the infection goes away. Of course they may smarten up and mutate–driving say Hondas instead of Toyotas.
Too bad we couldn’t whomp up a puff the magic semiautonomous drone, then assign a tracker to every muj as he gets out of the car, follow them back to their cave and make it personal. Or assign a tracker on the ones taken away and use a kill all non designated option. General Atomics, yohoooo, you readin’ this fellas?
to hell with a drone…
call in a Warthog and put on a firew*rks show for the villagers.
a dose or two of the silent gun and some Rockeyes for a sparkling finish they will never forget:
nothing but dust and damp spots.
I’ve seen what a Warthog can do and the ” wonderful” sound it makes when it unleashes it’s potential on a target…..always appreciated having them overhead while in AFGHN….
Sounds like the right approach to the problem.
Gee, I hope they are tracking where the cars slowly go. Though slow white Corollas sounds a little obvious – like the designated decoy.
Border Paks hating on each other…heh
Let the Reapers target caravans of Toyotas! What’s the downside?
ChrisP
Warthogs are so dern sexy!!!
I love those flying machines.