That afternoon, American signals operators picked up bin Laden speaking to his followers. Fury kept a careful log of these communications in his notebook, which he would type up at the end of every day and pass up his chain of command. “The time is now,” bin Laden said. “Arm your women and children against the infidel!” Following several hours of high-intensity bombing, the Al Qaeda leader spoke again. Fury paraphrases: “Our prayers have not been answered. Times are dire. We didn’t receive support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers.” Bin Laden apologized to his men for having involved them in the fight and gave them permission to surrender.
posted by jason's_planet on Jan 29, 2010 - 26 comments

Reintroducing Yvonne Ridley…
posted by hadjiboy on Jul 22, 2007 - 19 comments

Mike Hawash pleads guilty to conspiring to provide services to the Taliban and will testify against his friends that attempted to travel to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. After the previous MeFi threads about Mike here and here, this ought to be quite a suprise for some. No update yet on the Free Mike Hawash site.
posted by schlyer on Aug 6, 2003 - 30 comments

"The New P.C." Post 9/11 Political Correctness: "In the new p.c., anyone who says anything critical about the president or his administration is branded an anti-American akin to the Marin County Taliban," writes Frank Rich in the New York Times. The old p.c. died when Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" was nearly cancelled. Where will the new p.c. take us in the 21st century? (more inside)
posted by Carol Anne on Jan 5, 2002 - 62 comments

Most lawmakers want bin Laden dead. Is that a good idea, or should he have a public trial if captured? Also, Pakistan dismisses the idea that bin Laden has crossed over and hiding there somewhere. Given the strong support he and the Taliban have in Pakistan, would they turn him over if he is there?
posted by Rastafari on Nov 16, 2001 - 20 comments

Bush Refused a Deal that would have turned over Bin Laden? Does he want a ribbon wrapped around him? Does he want a cherry on top of him? So the Taliban wants to drop him off at a country other than the U.S., is that a bad thing? I know he doesn't want to negotiate, but they're saying they'll hand him over .. aren't they?
posted by tsarfan on Oct 15, 2001 - 46 comments

Taliban clerics meet to discuss bin Laden and then they kindly ask him to leave.
posted by bargle on Sep 20, 2001 - 22 comments

Was a US attack on the Taliban been in the works since July? According to this BBC article, the US had been planning a "military action", for the end of October, since mid July. The plan was to invade Afghanistan,oust the Taliban, and install a moderate government, possibly under former king Zahir Shah. Are the attacks last week simply going to legitimize this pre-existing plan? Or am I simply being too paranoid?
posted by bshort on Sep 18, 2001 - 32 comments

Troops Massing on Afghanistan/Pakistan Border: 20,000+ Taliban troops and an unreported number of Pakistani reinforcements have been deployed in anticipation of a Pakistan-based U.S. strike.
posted by ryanshepard on Sep 17, 2001 - 11 comments

http://www.taleban.com keeps looping back to our own machines at work. At home, it comes up non-existant yet it's showed up in my server logs. network solutions has a listing for it. Anyone else getting bizarre results with this domain?
posted by Zebulun on Sep 13, 2001 - 15 comments

Taleban will extradite Bin Laden... If there is sufficient evidence for his guilt, according to the BBC.
posted by talos on Sep 12, 2001 - 19 comments

Paratroopers? Or cruise missiles? What will America's military response be if the Taliban are determined to be liable? The Russians certainly didn't too well with a conventional military attack on Afghanistan.
posted by MattD on Sep 11, 2001 - 34 comments