Taliban

Re "Shooting of teenage activist unleashes outrage in Pakistan," Oct. 11 Where are the riots in the rest of the Muslim world? Where are the fatwas against the shooter and Taliban leaders from Muslims throughout the world? Isn't the subhuman shooting of an innocent child, and its justification as an Islamic religious act by Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, a much bigger insult to the religion and its prophet than a lame movie trailer posted on YouTube? Alan Segal San Diego ALSO: Letters: U.S. law abroad Letters: A less religious America Letters: Abortion back in the campaign

It's appalling enough that 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who publicly championed the cause of education for girls in Pakistan, was shot in the head and neck and critically injured by gunmen who boarded her school bus in the Swat Valley. Even more horrendous is that a Taliban spokesman declared that she had been singled out for attack because of her support of girls' education in defiance of Taliban edict. "Let this be a lesson," the spokesman told the New York Times. We hope it will be a lesson - that such violence is barbaric and counterproductive.

I'm not sure if there's a Pakistani version of Pogo, but there should be, because after what happened there this week, his famous line -- "We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- certainly seems to apply. Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old girl in Pakistan's Swat Valley, was shot in the head Tuesday while riding on her school bus. The Pakistani Taliban quickly claimed responsibility. Yousafzai's crime? She had spoken out against the group and its attempts to ban education for girls.

Re "Afghan 'insider' killings threaten, alter exit strategy," Sept. 19 President Obama inherited two expensive wars. He eliminated Osama bin Laden, so I take it our troops' extended stay was intended to train Afghans to fight the Taliban. This is not a country in which we have a strong national interest. It does not cherish our presence, nor is it willing to adopt our democratic ways. Its leaders are corrupt. Now the same policemen we trained are killing our troops. If NATO forces are no longer patrolling alongside Afghan security personnel, what keeps us from speeding up the withdrawal of our soldiers?

KABUL, Afghanistan - Does a prince's presence endanger those serving alongside him? The Taliban launched a rare all-out assault on the heavily fortified NATO base in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province where Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, is deployed. The attack lasted into the early hours of Saturday and left two U.S. Marines dead, military officials said. Afterward, a Taliban spokesman reiterated the group's desire to kill or capture Queen Elizabeth II's grandson.

KABUL, Afghanistan - In a disastrous day for the NATO force in Afghanistan, four American troops were gunned down Sunday by Afghan police, a U.S. airstrike killed eight Afghan women foraging for fuel on a rural hillside, and military officials disclosed that a Taliban strike on a southern base had destroyed more than $150 million worth of planes and equipment - in money terms, by far the costliest single insurgent attack in 11 years of warfare....

KHAZANA, Pakistan - Awal Gul knows that home is just a two-hour drive over the jagged ridgeline that separates Pakistan from Afghanistan. But he hasn't been there in more than 30 years, since Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul. A refugee of a long-gone era, he doesn't have a patch of land to return to, or a house or a job. That may not matter. Pakistan is growing increasingly impatient as host of the world's largest refugee community - millions of Afghans who fled the Soviet invasion and, later, Taliban rule.

More than a decade after he was captured in Afghanistan, John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban," was in a federal court in Indiana this week seeking not his release from a federal prison in Terre Haute but the right to pray with fellow Muslim inmates several times a day. Lindh makes a plausible case that the facility is needlessly restricting his rights under federal law. Lindh, a teenage convert to Islam who joined the Taliban before...

A trial to determine whether "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh and other Muslims in a special prison unit can pray together is set to begin Monday in a federal court in Indianapolis. The lawsuit against the Federal Correction Institution in Terre Haute, Ind., was originally filed in 2009 by two other prisoners who said they were denied the right to pray as a group more than once a week. Lindh later joined the plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.  Lindh, 31, says that his faith requires group prayer and that it is a sin not to do so if he is able, according to court documents.