The recent murders of the innocent and brave medical aid workers are heinous crimes against humanity. In a troubling turn, this news heralds a new problem in Afghanistan: the murders were committed in Northern Afghanistan, long thought Northern Alliance territory where the Taliban owned no ground.
The murders offer proof that the insurgency throughout Afghanistan is gaining ground and adherents. The ease and utter lack of tribal sanction with which these murders were committed suggest that the Taliban are making strong moves north-ward, away from their home-territory of Southern Afghanistan.
The New York Times offers a good run-down on the political strategy that may be behind the vicious murders:
“The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings, accusing the group of being spies and Christian missionaries. Pressured in their traditional strongholds in the south and east by NATO’s growing concentration of forces there, the insurgents have become more active in areas once relatively quiet, like Badakhshan Province.
“They have recently jettisoned taboos on using women and children as suicide bombers, and on assassinating tribal elders. Now it appears they have also breached the longstanding custom of providing safe passage to aid workers, who have often been free to work in both government and insurgent-dominated areas.”
Is this a new world? That’s hard to say; its certainly seems like a more difficult one, with rougher terrain.