Beheaded man's body home
2007-04-11 22:30
Kabul - Ajmal Naqshbandi came home on
Wednesday to his wife, a shed-full of weeping, wailing women
and a strangely silent street.
Hundreds turned out to pray in the street and see the
24-year-old journalist's coffin lowered into the sun-baked dirt
of a small hilltop graveyard near his home.
He was beheaded by the Taliban on Sunday after the Afghan
government refused to free several insurgents, although it
swapped five two weeks ago for the Italian reporter he was
working for.
"For a foreigner, they can release five Taliban," said his
weeping 14-year-old brother-in-law, Mussadaq.
"For a local and
a Muslim, they can't release any."
Beheading 'to pressure Italy'
La Repubblica reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, Naqshbandi
and driver Sayed Agha were kidnapped in early March on a remote
road in lawless Helmand province - the opium capital of the
world's biggest producer and an area most foreigners consider a
no-go zone.
Mastrogiacomo was freed about two weeks later after Agha
was beheaded in front of him in what most analysts see as a
move to pressure the Italian government.
"When Ajmal was arrested by the Taliban, I cried so much,"
said his 20-year-old cousin, Humayun. "Now we have lost him.
"If the government had released some Taliban, he would be
here today," he added before the simple plywood coffin draped
in green and black arrived at Naqshbandi's home for a brief
ceremony before his burial.
The busy street was closed briefly as male mourners washed
their hands with dust and prayed silently after shouts of
"Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).
Taliban expected to take more hostages
His wife of one year was too distraught to talk.
Security experts and Afghan officials have said the
Mastrogiacomo deal - widely criticised in Italy and
Afghanistan - was sure to encourage the Taliban to take more
foreigners.
The insurgents are holding two French aid workers - a man
and a woman - and three Afghan companions captured in Nimroz
province between Iran and Helmand.
They are also holding five Afghan health workers.