South Korean Christian hostage crisis: Rescue attempt reported… “The operation has started”…Refuted? Update: Reuters withdraws rescue report Update: More conflicting reports Update: 1:30pm Eastern…The final deadline?
Here’s the latest video report of a reported rescue operation for the 21 remaining South Korean Christian hostages kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Stand by for more.
Update 1:30pm Eastern. Taliban announces what it’s calling its final deadline…
Taliban insurgents suggested 4:30 p.m. on August 1 as a new deadline for negotiations after they killed another Korean hostage, Shim Seong-min (29), on July 31. The Taliban said they would kill the 21 hostages one by one if the negotiations fail to meet their expectations this time.
Taliban spokesman Yousuf warned on July 31 through the foreign press, including the AP and AFP, that the last deadline for the 21 left hostages would be this afternoon (Korean time: 4:30 p.m. August 1).
Update 11:00am Eastern. More conflicting reports via Christian Today (hat tip - Dan Riehl)…
Confusion arose as contrasting reports emerged from Afghanistan in the mission to free Korean Christian hostages being held by Taliban militants.
The BBC has reported receiving information about fighting breaking out in the area where the team of Korean Christian hostages are being held, saying the development suggests a dangerous operation had begun to free them.
The Telegraph has also reported that a joint US and Afghan army operation had allegedly been launched in Afghanistan to free 21 South Korean hostages held captive by Taliban insurgents.
Local officials in the area reported to the BBC that fighting had broken out between the Afghan army and Taliban forces in Ghazni province south-west of Kabul, the country’s capital.
In addition, earlier on Wednesday the Afghan military had used helicopters to drop leaflets across the area telling local residents to flee, prompting rumours a strike was imminent as another Taliban deadline passed.
However, the Afghan interior ministry insisted that no such operation was underway and spokesmen for the US army and the South Korean Embassy denied any knowledge of an assault on the hostage takers.
Update 10:15am Eastern. Reuters withdraws the hostage rescue attempt story. What the…?
Please be advised that the Kabul datelined story reporting that an operation to rescue 21 Korean hostages held by the Taliban had begun is wrong. The official cited in the story did not make the comment reported. There will be no substitute story.
“The official cited in the story did not make the comment reported.” Say what?
Update 10:00am Eastern: Here are photos of the remaining S. Korean Christian hostages. They are our brothers and sisters…
Update 9:35am Eastern. There’s confusion about whether this rescue attempt is real or not. Yonhap is running this quote: “We have not sanctioned such a rescue operation. We have not been informed of such an action either,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Youn-soo said.
A military operation to rescue the remaining 21 Korean hostages held by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan began on Wednesday, hours after a Taliban deadline expired, a provincial official said.
“The operation has started,” said Khowja Seddiqi, the district chief of Ghazni’s Qarabagh district, where the Taliban kidnapped 23 Korean Christian volunteers nearly two weeks ago.
He did not give more details or say which forces were involved. Any attempt to rescue the hostages is fraught with risk, as the kidnappers have split the 18 women and three men into small groups and are holding them in different locations across the mainly flat terrain.
The Taliban could not be immediately be contacted, but spokesmen for the radical Islamist movement have repeatedly said any use of force would jeopardise the lives of the hostages.
Earlier the army had dropped leaflets warning civilians of an assault.
Eugene Cho has covered the crisis extensively and expresses the frustration I share about the lack of American concern over the past two weeks:
Seriously, does anyone care? Is anyone else just tired of the Michael Vick story? Why isn’t the media sharing more about the situation? Anderson Cooper, where are you? I really do not understand how this cannot be prominent NEWS here in the United States. I understand that these hostages are not “Americans.” They are Koreans and Asians and thus, considered by some as “others” here. But, can’t people understand that the Taliban took these hostages as an attack and a statement - not to Christians or to Koreans, but to all those that oppose them. This was and is a statement to the US as well, right? Isn’t that the reason why the first interview was given to CBS News, right? Where is the outrage? It pisses me off immensely that another person has been killed and it is barely mentioned. My cynical prediction: this won’t be front news until the Afghan president, Harmid Karzai, visits President Bush at Camp David on August 5 and 6 - that is, if the hostages are still alive. Does anyone care?
James Na yesterday:
It is a self-loathing pathos of a post-modern capitalist democracy where victimhood trumps victory on the moral plane — why fight like dog-faces and win when suffering from aggressions of others is a far nobler endeavor?
Are we now reaching the apex of the reaction against the kind of virulent nationalism and imperalism of the 19th Century and the early 20th Century that resulted in the bloodbath of the two world wars?
Can people arouse themselves from a cozy, air conditioned Starbucks to muster rage and anger against those who harm their tribe or is such “primitive” feeling passé along with rabbit hunting on one’s backyard?
I have long resisted a cyclical view of history, but when I think of where Western post-modern society is headed (the prizing of clever words and legal arguments and the disappareance of mensch-ness), I cannot but help visualize how helpless the silk-clad Mandarins must have looked as illiterate nomadic warriors broke into their cities or how pathetic the Byzantine magnates must have appeared as they fled their estates from the ravages of Varangians and Arabs.
Perhaps they lost their civilizations despite all the advantages of superior technology, learning, organization, and wealth, because, in the end, they simply lost their desire for vengeance.
Joshua Stanton at One Free Korea: “If you’re practiced at prayer, this would be a good time.” Joshua presaged the rescue bid yesterday in “Ransom is not a countermeasure:” “Talk of yielding to their demands will only get more people kidnapped and killed.”
My column this week spotlights the martyrs no one cares about:
The blood of innocent Christian missionaries spills on Afghan sands. The world watches and yawns. The United Nations offers nothing more than a formal expression of “concern.” Where is the global uproar over the human rights abuses unfolding before our eyes?
For two weeks, a group of South Korean Christians has been held hostage by Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. This is the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. What was their offense? Were they smuggling arms into the country? No. Inciting violence? No. They were peaceful believers in Christ on short-term medical and humanitarian missions. Seventeen of the 23 hostages are females. Most of them are nurses who provide social services and relief.
Over the past few days, the bloodthirsty jihadists have demanded that South Korea immediately withdraw troops from the Middle East, pay ransom and trade the civilian missionaries for imprisoned Taliban fighters. The Taliban leaders have made good on threats to kill the kidnapped Christians while Afghan officials plead fecklessly that their monstrous behavior is “un-Islamic.”
Two men, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min and 42-year-old Pastor Bae Hyeong-gyu, have already been shot to death and dumped in the name of Allah. Bae was a married father with a 9-year-old daughter. According to Korean media, he was from a devout Christian family from the island province of Jeju. He helped found the Saemmul Church south of Seoul, which sent the volunteers to Afghanistan.
Across Asia, media coverage is 24/7. Strangers have held nightly prayer vigils. But the human rights crowd in America has been largely AWOL. And so has most of our mainstream media. Among some of the secular elite, no doubt, is a blame-the-victim apathy: The missionaries deserved what they got. What were they thinking bringing their message of faith to a war zone? Didn’t they know they were sitting ducks for Muslim head-choppers whose idea of evangelism is “convert or die”?
I noted the media shoulder-shrugging about jihadist targeting of Christian missionaries five years ago during the kidnapping and murder of American Christian missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham in the Philippines. The silence is rooted in viewing committed Christians as alien others. At best, there is a collective callousness. At worst, there is outright contempt — from Ted Turner’s reference to Catholics as “Jesus freaks” to CBS producer Roxanne Russell’s casual insult of former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer as “the little nut from the Christian group” to the mockery of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.
Curiously, those who argue that we need to “understand” Islamic terrorists demonstrate little effort to “understand” the Christian evangelical missionaries who risk their lives to spread the gospel — not by sword, but through acts of compassion, healing and education. An estimated 16,000 Korean mission workers risk their lives across the globe — from Africa to the Middle East, China and North Korea.
These are true practitioners of a religion of peace, not the hate-mongers with bombs and AK-47s strapped to their chests who slay instead of pray their way to martyrdom.
***
Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters has a good reminder of another prominent case of MSM bias against Christian missionairies.
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- Webloggin - Blog Archive » Afghanistan-Taliban Terrorists Take Another Korean Hostage Life
- Pajamas Media
- Hyscience
- Freedoms Zone
- “The Martyrs No One Cares About” « Conservative Thought Forum
- Bill's Bites
- Possible Rescue Mission Launched to Save Remaining South Korean Missionaries | JesusMySavior
- Infidels Are Cool » Blog Archive » Korean Hostage Crisis being ignored
- The callousness of our Leaders « The Ramblings of Mathaytace Christou
- Back Home Again
- Blame America Campaign Picks Up Steam at ROK Drop
- The Islam Question : Bweinh!
- Hostage situation - It’s just got worse, and worser! « Assaulting the Spire
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Thank you for that, Michelle. It’s a deep shame that even Drudge has refused to note this ongoing evil.
Link to Reuters story - 8:38 AM EST:
Hostage rescue bid begins in Afghanistan
I cannot think of anytime when 23 people have been taken hostage, whether by bank robbers or Islamic fanatics, and it has been so ignored. Is it because we have now reached a point where we accept this behavior from the jihadists? I hope not, for if it does it certainly paints a grim picture for the future. If we continue to ignore or sweep under a rug and in a lot of cases offer apologies for these mad men then they have won.
When in the history of the world has a group killed so many people across the globe and not suffered immediate retribution? World wars have been started over less and yet today as long as it doesn’t interrupt our daily routines we shrug and go on.
I just can’t understand it.
Ibrahim Hooper was unavailable for comment.
I don’t recall exactly how it goes, but I dimly recall a phrase along the lines of; “One night they came for my neighbors but we just quietly watched. The next night they came for us and no one came to help or weep.”
The world needs a harder lesson I’m afraid.
I pray for the hostages and hope the rescue attempt is being lead by South Korea. I regrettably wonder just how much heart the Afghan forces has in it.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
James this is what you are looking for, I believe
I believe MM has a YouTube-banned version of “First they came for..”, James. As you said, mebbe some folks don’t care until it hits home as it did at the Beslan school massacre. But the bell is tolling for all civilized people.
The “angry” crowds are silent because those being held hostage are Christians, plain and simple.
Fox News is STILL saying that there is a rescue mission in work.
Such a wonderful way to LET THE ENEMY KNOW WE ARE COMING.
Such fools all in the name of The Big Scoop.
Fox has just now gave contradictory reports - there is/there is no rescue mission. They’re not sure.
It may just be miscommunication or the need for secrecy perhaps?
If the operation is already under way the bad guys already know. If it isn’t there is another reason to say it is. One report said they had split up the group and were holding them at separate locations.
I hope there is a rescue mission.
Pray for their rescue and believe this happened for a reason—to show the world the contrast between Christians and the radical Islamics.
Stop what you are doing and pray and ask others to do the same. Thanks.
Of course the ROK’ers deny approving such an attempt. I’m pretty sure they didn’t approve it, given earlier requests they made that no one attempt a rescue because the hostages might be hurt.
The disconnect in that; trying to prevent injury death to the hostages by basically sentencing them to be executed one-by-one is awe-inspiring.
Would it do any good to write our Senators?
If so, I will write to Dole/Burr asap.
Please God, deliver these people from evil.
From ABC news,”The Taliban could not be immediately be contacted, but spokesmen for the radical Islamist movement have repeatedly said any use of force would jeopardise the lives of the hostages”. Gee,I guess the Taliban does care about human life. Maybe they can get a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Prayers.
I think the rescue mission did not happen and was reported in error:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070801/wl_nm/afghan_hostage_rescue_dc_2;_ylt=ApxDTn.YsifzOBryCIT.1cz9xg8F
If the Afghan forces just made noises about a rescue they put the missionaries lives in a more immediate danger from the terrorists.
Reuters has pulled the story
Reuters Withdraws Afghan Rescue Op Story
On August 1st, 2007 at 10:32 am, purplepeep said:
More of the rush to put out a story without confirming its validity … didn’t they get pummeled enough yet over faux-tography and non-existent sources?
Sadly, I expect the media to act that way. But the more important point to me is that whoever floated this story locally - Afghan officials, the media, whoever - could have caused much tragedy to happen in a very short time.
Eugene Cho -
Why the MSM news blackout? They’re Cristians. You don’t get it. The on-going present day persecution of Christians worldwide is not news to the MSM. The neo-con, poser, Bush globalist administration doesn’t care either. They did nothing about about the slaughter in Sudan. They ignore the wholesale killing & persecution of Christians in U.S. occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. But, we will send troops to protect Muslims in Kosovo - who then come here to bomb us.
The blood of the martyrs is on the hands of Bush. The judgment of Christ is coming. He will avenge world rulers first as He gave them power and they have abused it. Mr. Bush - it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of Almighty God. He is a consuming fire. Be prepared for your meeting!!
That’s all well and good, riccola. God will hold all accountable.
But right now I’m thinking more about how I just can’t imagine what these poor people are going through.
You have to also remember the monsters doing this thing murder their fellow Muslims with equal satisfaction. They are totally given over to evil.
Well said, Michelle.
If it’s Christians versus Taliban, Taliban wins because of their “victim of USA” status. James Na is correct. We are leaping headlong into our own national suicide.
I am going to take a different tack on the reporting of the rescue mission. Earlier reports said the Taliban had separated the hostages and were holding them at different locations. Leaking news of a rescue mission is a gamble, but it just might flush out the various locations. I agree it could result in the simultaneous killing of all of the hostages but at this point I think the reasoning was they could either wait to see them killed one by one or take this risk and maybe rescue some of them.
Whatever is going on I don’t think we will learn of it until it is over. I am also holding on to hope that the Afghans are not the primary rescue force but rather our SF types are. Let the Afghans take credit.
That would be an interesting tactic.
Yup. That’s why this seemed a little odd to me.
Yup again.
The judgment of Christ is coming. He will avenge world rulers first as He gave them power and they have abused it. Mr. Bush - it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of Almighty God. He is a consuming fire. - riccola
You know what this sort of statement reminds me of? The transcript from a Zawahiri video. Seriously.
You let me know when the consuming fire gets here. Until then, I’m more interested in real-world solutions to the problems we face.
On August 1st, 2007 at 10:13 am, gayle said:
Would it do any good to write our Senators?
If so, I will write to Dole/Burr asap.
I agree with Eugene Cho, when by happenstance this crisis does get a token, 10 second honorable mention in passing, it’s just that: in passing.
PS : @*&# YOU MATT DRUDGE!!
Milwaukee Mike:
A fellow Milwaukeean here!
You’re probably right. It floors me that two of the most uncommunicative, ineffectual Senators keep getting re-elected in our state. But, then again, we re-elected Jim Doyle, didn’t we?
Both Herb Kohl and Russ “Let’s censure President Bush! Again!” Feingold voted down John Doe.
Until then - Kohl’s website hadn’t updated its press releases since 2005. 2005. I emailed them both, and got only a generic, it-wasn’t-a-good-idea response from Kohl.
From Feingold? Cue the crickets.
If our forces go in and get the job done with a slew of casualties we’ll have to endure hearings in D.C. for the next year.
Unfortunately, I fear those young people are lost. Somehow, the U.S. will be blamed and So. Korea will send more aid to the lunatics.
Maybe if the Taliban took Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Michael Vick hostage, the MSM would pay more attention.
No doubt there would be a media circus outside the Taliban compound where the hostages are, replete with 50 or so satellite trucks, helicopters, Geraldo, and around the clock coverage on all the networks. Although not so sure about Michael Vick, that worm might have been unfairly lumped in with the girls, losers may they be…
If the Taliban took them hostage, I think quite a few Americans would be very happy.
Keep in mind that THEY are the people - along with our political leaders - that define the rest of us to the world.
And I don’t know about the rest of you, but they don’t represent me at all.
God bless them.
A ‘final deadline’ tells me they are feeling the heat, probably getting a little paranoid. I think they know that killing all 21 remaining hostages would be a PR nightmare for them, so I actually think they just might release all of them. They clearly do not want this to go on forever, they will release them all or kill them all and then attempt to lay low and blend in with the population for awhile. But if they decide to kill…there will be deep ramifications, consequences reaching far and wide. They will regret and rue the day they try that…
They are probably even annoyed at the kidnapped Korean missionaries for bringing the world’s attention back to why we are fighting the War on Terror in the first place–when liberals have tried so hard to make it seem like there is no danger whatsover and that we should withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Therefore, liberals are determined to ignore this story. It is for reasons like these that liberals and Hollywood types give America a bad name.
Way too many cheeseheads in these parts.
Where is Jack Bauer when you need him?!?
Interesting article on this mess at MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20077498/site/newsweek/page/0/
Looks like Newsweek has their own special hotline direct to the Taliban. Newsweek, what a great propaganda vehicle for the talibs. Someone named Sami Yousafzai shares the byline in the article. Perhaps he could answer how that works.
I also can’t help but wonder if this could have been avoided had the Afghanis not traded prisoners for the Italian journalist earlier this year.