Cash offered for dead westerners

Posted 2:15PM on Friday 5th April 2002 ( 23 years ago )

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Al-Qaida and Taliban forces are distributing pamphlets that offer rewards for dead or captured Westerners and threaten Afghans who support the U.S.-led coalition, U.S. Army officials said Friday. Maj. Iris Hurd said leaflets have been found in the last few weeks that offer $50,000 for a Westerner delivered dead and $100,000 for one who is alive. The pamphlets are known as ``shabnama,'' or ``night letters,'' because they are distributed clandestinely, often at night. Hurd said they are sometimes slipped under people's doors. The leaflets say that ``if you support the coalition or the AIA, we will threaten your family with violence,'' she said. The AIA is the interim administration of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, which took over after the coalition toppled the conservative Islamic Taliban militia late last year. She did not show any of the pamphlets, but said allied forces had some in hand. She would not elaborate on who may have written them, or how they instructed Afghans to cash in on the rewards. Another set of pamphlets calling for armed struggle against the U.S.-led allies began circulating early last month among Afghan refugees in Pakistan, as well as here in Afghanistan. Those pamphlets denounced Karzai's interim government as ``traitors to Islam'' and warned Afghans and others who fight alongside the Americans that they will someday ``suffer the consequences.'' The pamphlets sometimes include unsupported allegations that the Americans used chemical and biological weapons to kill thousands of people in last year's bombing campaign against the Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorist network it was sheltering. Others include stories of personal sacrifice and so-called ``miracles'' in the battle against the U.S.-led coalition - all apparently designed to inspire young Afghan males to take up the fight and to drive home the message that God is on the Taliban side. Hurd works for the U.S. Army division called Information Operations, which distributes pro-U.S. information. A colleague from the same division said the pamphlets prove that al-Qaida and Taliban forces are desperate to counter the positive humanitarian work the allies are doing. ``The main reason they're doing that is because of our actions - because of the good works we are doing. They know it is working,'' said Sgt. 1st Class Danny Eller. The Information Operations division also disseminates pamphlets, but Eller said there was a major difference: ``They can put out anything they want, any time they want, and no one will hold them accountable. We've got the reins on us to keep us on the straight and narrow. If I put out something false, I could go to jail.''

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/4/202570