Ben Griffin, the ex-SAS trooper who this week revealed the extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, was served with an injunction immediately after speaking at the London World Against War rally last night. The government is trying to gag Ben to prevent any more revelations about British involvement in the US policy of kidnapping people and sending them to secret centres for interrogation and torture.
Omar to Taliban: Stop beheadings
By Janullah Hashimzada & Akram Noorzai - Feb 3, 2008 - 18:07
PESHAWAR/LASHKARGAH (PAN): Elusive Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar has ordered fighters of the rebel movement to stop beheading those found guilty of spying for Afghan and foreign forces.
A well-placed source confided to Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday the Taliban supremo had instructed the insurgents, who beheaded more than 100 people on spying charges over the last 11 months, to execute spies by shooting.
Familiar with the orders against decapitations, a member of the Taliban military council told this news agency over the telephone from an undisclosed location that henceforth convicted spies would be killed by firing.
[...]
A Pakistan-based Afghan religious scholar characterised decapitations as a sinister conspiracy to denigrate Muslims. Maulvi Ghulam Hazrat remarked: Beheadings, carried out either by Taliban or anyone else, are a contemptible act that must be denounced. Shariah decrees specific punishments for criminals.
Mullah Abdul Khaliq, a militant commander in the restive Uruzgan province, insisted they had slaughtered none in recent months. Taliban no longer slaughter spies and policemen our elders have ordered a stop to decapitations.