June 13, 2004

The men who killed 11 Chinese construction workers on the 10th were new Taliban recruits who had previously been followers of Islamic radical leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The 14 gunmen had decided to try and enforce the Taliban program of driving all foreigners out of the country. The Taliban is against foreign reconstruction efforts, feeling that this corrupts the purity of the Afghan people. Most Afghans think that this attitude is nuts, but the Taliban are still popular with 10-20 percent of the people and many of these folks have guns and are willing to use them. This has always been a problem in Afghanistan.