Attackers gouge Afghan farmer's eyes out in front of screaming family
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:43 AM on 27th October 2008

Three armed men forced their way into a farmer's home and gouged his eyes out in front of his family in southern Afghanistan.
Sayed Ghulam, 52, is recovering in a hospital in the country's largest southern city, Kandahar after the unprovoked attack.

He said on Sunday that three armed men knocked on his door in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Thursday night .

After he opened the door, they punched him in the face, put the barrel of a Kalashnikov rifle in his mouth and gouged out his eyes with a knife in front of his wife and seven children.

Blinded: Attackers gouged farmer Sayed Ghulam's eyes out in front of his wife and children
He said: 'I was crying, along with my children and wife, who was screaming for help, but they didn't listen,.'

The farmer who raises wheat and popcorn, said he does not know why he was attacked. He said: 'I don't have any enemies. But they were not letting me talk. They put the AK-47 in my mouth and they were punching me.'

Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for Helmand's governor, blamed Taliban fighters for the attack, saying that the militants often kill innocent Afghans.

He said: 'This guy Ghulam was just a normal man, a farmer. He didn't have any link with the government or NATO forces. He was a normal man but these killers took out his eyes in front of his family. I don't know what kind of heart these killers have.'

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi denied the group was involved.

He said: 'Whenever we carry out an attack we claim responsibility. We didn't gouge out this man's eyes.'

Ghulam, who has a black beard and whose head is almost completely wrapped in a large white bandage, said his attackers were wearing black turbans on their head like many Taliban fighters, but that he didn't know who carried out the attack.

Taliban militants sometimes carry out harsh punishments on people they accuse of being thieves or 'spies' for the Afghan government. Such punishments include having hands cut off or being tarred and paraded publicly, but few reports of people having their eyes gouged out have been reported in Afghanistan in recent years.

In Kabul, two high-profile Afghan kidnapping victims were freed by intelligence officials on  Sunday after being discovered in a well where their captors had kept them, officials said.

Captors had demanded $5 million each for Humayun Shah Asifi, a former presidential candidate in the country's 2004 elections, and a second hostage, the son of the owner of a major bank chain, said Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan's intelligence department.
The two, abducted separately, had been held for less than a week.
Officials arrested eight people suspected of being involved in the kidnappings, he said.

Kidnapping of high-profile and wealthy Afghans is a growing problem. Criminal gangs demand high ransoms for the release of their hostages. The kidnapping crime wave has caused some Afghan businessmen to flee the country.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1080848/Attackers-gouge-Afghan-farmers-eyes-screaming-family.html

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I don't know if this was the taliban- on another forum someone said "The public perception created by the media and Karzai is that the drug trade in Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban. However the fact is that the bulk of the Drug trade is in fact being controlled by druglords and warlords who are not aligned with the Taliban but are closely aligned politically to Karzai. Most of the Rural provinces are controlled by these warlords and criminal gangs with connections to Governors and corrupt Police. Karzai is powerless because he needs their political support to prop up his government, they even force people to vote for him. If he fights drugs he will kill off his political support and half the country will revert to Taliban control virtually overnight.

This case highlights an honest farmer who wants to grow honest crops. But the drug barrons and mafia gangs that control these rural areas have made an example of him to ensure that other poor farmers continue growing the drugs for them."

but seeing as the taliban is known for striking the fear of god into people (as highlighted in this article)- do you still believe it would be so easy to 'reign them in' freediver?

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I take it you were being sarcastic easel, but I can tell you that I do not think any does.

They use armoured vehicles and police escorts to transport it, and have full on security(I used to live in the town where they process it all)

Now as far as the poppy fields go, I can tell you that lots of poppies go missing every year, and many old hippies brew up their own opium from them, but statistically it is minute.

I know quite a few gardens with them growing, they are a very pretty flower, and the people grow them for their aesthetic value, not their chemical value.