CNS News

Taliban Says Afghans Are Destroying US Food Packets

New Delhi (CNSNews.com) - The spokesman for the Taliban information ministry says the people of Afghanistan are burning the food dropped by US planes instead of eating it. Abdul Hanan Himat was quoted by a wire service as saying, "Americans are killing us with the attacks, and we don't need this food." Echoing that sentiment, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, said, "Americans will not be able to purchase the Afghan people by money or food." At a press conference in Islamabad on Wednesday, Zaeef also rejected U.S. reports that air strikes had destroyed the defense capabilities of the Taliban. Since the air raids began, US planes have dropped thousands of food packets over Afghanistan in a humanitarian gesture intended to show that the US-led coalition is a friend of the Afghan people, even though it is a foe of the Taliban leadership. The yellow plastic food packets contain red beans, rice, fruit bars, peanut butter and strawberry jam, providing about 2,200 calories. (CNSNews.com India Correspondent T.C. Malhotra filed this report.)

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

Answers

Somehow I don't think it is the Afghan women who are destroying the food...

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

I don't believe a word of it. The Taliban has lied so many times, why should I believe them now?

Maybe they are burning the food packets that are dropped around them. I somehow doubt that the innocent civilians are burning it since the Taliban has stolen (what was it???) 1400 Tons of food that was for them?

I'm surprised that they haven't turned cannibal against the Taliban yet. (Joke)

apoc

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

Wait for them to start telling the people the beans contain hidden pork fat--I'm surprised they haven't thought of it yet. But, then, if you're starving (and so many Afghanis are), would it stop you? Also, I thought I heard a report that the first packets were dropped in Northern Alliance-held territory and you know the NA will tell people it's okay to eat.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

Think I heard that the leaflets are written in English, French and something else that the Afghans are unlikely to be able to read. It at least shows we didn't make them with this campaign in mind.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

I believe it was Powell who said they also had stick pictures on them.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

DRUDGE

Afghans burn U.S. food airdrops: reports

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 10, 2001 (Kyodo) -- Afghan civilians in Vardak and Ghazni provinces close to Kabul have burned food packages air-dropped by the United States in protest against U.S. air strikes, according to reports from Afghanistan.

A source in Peshawar, western Pakistan, citing witness accounts from Afghanistan, said several hundred people in each of the two provinces gathered the packets of rice and fruit dropped by the U.S. military, piled them up outside their homes and torched them.

"No need for pity," some of them chanted.

"We will fight America to the end."

On Tuesday, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salem Zaeef, denounced the U.S. food drop policy, calling it "an insult" to the Afghan people.

U.S. President George W. Bush initiated the food drop policy, saying Afghans -- long suffering from food shortages brought on by drought -- are American friends and that the U.S. air strike was targeted at the Taliban and alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden and his network.

U.S. officials say more than 100,000 food packets have been dropped in Afghanistan.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001