Taliban Gunmen Hunted 'Pimps' and 'Prostitutes', Witnesses Say 22 June, 2012 KABUL (Reuters) - For 8-year-old Rasoul

Khan, a cleaning job at a favored weeken d relaxation spot for Kabul's wealthy was meant to help bring a better life in a country stricken by widespread poverty. Instead, the Spozhmai Hotel beside Qargha Lake will probably evoke terror whenev er he remembers the five Taliban gunmen who burst through its doors as the privi leged gathered to relax on the eve of the Friday religious holiday. "They were asking everyone where the pimps were. They shot anyone who would not co-operate with them," said Khan, bearing a facial injury and standing barefoot after fleeing the leafy grounds. For the deeply conservative Taliban, men and women who simply mingle, perhaps fl irt, are condemned as pimps and prostitutes who deserve punishment sanctioned by God. The attack again showed the ability of insurgents to easily stage high-profile r aids even as NATO nations prepare to withdraw most of their combat troops by the end of 2014 and leave Afghans to lead the fight. Gunmen shifted a large store of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), heavy weapons and rifles, as well as suicide vests, into the stone-walled, single storey struc ture surrounded by trees and gardens. The Taliban said it launched the attack to target wealthy Afghans and foreigners who used the hotel, about 10 km (6 miles) from the center of Kabul, for "wild p arties". The hotel, like a building site in central Kabul used by militants in April to u nleash barrages of RPGs and automatic gunfire on Western embassies, was only lig htly defended by a handful of poorly paid 'chowkidar' guards. HUMAN SHIELDS As in the earlier attack in the city center, two guards were immediately shot de ad, beginning a horrifying 12-hour ordeal in which hostages were used as human s hields against a counter-attack by Afghan and Norwegian special forces. With a quavering voice, Ebadullah, 14, another cleaner at the hotel, described h ow one of his friends wet himself when an insurgent demanded information on the whereabouts of other guests who had not been hunted down. "He cried and said that he was an orphan and was the only bread winner for his f amily," said Ebadullah, wearing traditional baggy trousers and a long flowing sh irt. "They were calling to everyone 'where are the pimps, where are the prostitutes'. They killed many people." Inside the hotel, around eight bodies, some with bullet wounds to the head, stil l lay on the floor amid shattered doors and windows. A bomb lay beneath the body of a young man -- planted by the Taliban to inflict more casualties. Many of the victims were dressed in jeans and shirts, the kind of Western clothe s that used to draw fury from the Taliban. It seems they were shot while trying to hide.

At a military hospital in Kabul where the wounded were treated, engineer Salder Rahi recalled how he had gone to the hotel to meet his brother and three friends . By the end of the ordeal, his sibling was among the dead. "They opened fire on everybody. Everybody just ran. There was a party outside an d I saw the father shot dead and his wife wounded," Rahi said. Some, like Abdullah Samadi, 24, feel so lucky to be alive they believe it had to be divine intervention. He was just settling in at about 9 pm when he heard a h uge blast from an RPG, followed by gunfire. "We tried to escape, but we were surrounded by suicide bombers. We hid ourselves beneath a tree until morning. God protected us," he said. The gunmen, Samadi said, had been closely watching their prisoners and searching for illegal stocks of wine. "Around dawn they came closer to us and we had to jump in the water," he said. "We were there until 9 am and then the situation got better and we slowly, slowl y swam toward security forces." (Writing by Rob Taylor; Editing by Michael Georgy and Jeremy Laurence) http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/06/22/world/asia/22reuters-afghanistan-hotel -witness.html?ref=global-home&gwh=C3BAD90A6F91E98579A332FFEB19F041 ------------

The Book, Bangladesh's Prime Minister Was Never Allowed To Read By Her Father! Jun 22 2012 New Delhi: It is a book Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh's ind ependence, never allowed his daughter Sheikh Hasina to read when he was alive. It is an autobiography he wrote when he was lodged in Dhaka central jail by the authorities of erstwhile East Pakistan between 1967 and 1969. It is a book Hasina, now Bangladesh's Prime Minister, decided to bring out when she was in the same jail as an Opposition leader for alleged graft during the ar my-backed caretaker government of Fakhruddin Ahmed (2007-09). Thirty-five years after Mujib was assassinated in a military putsch on August 15 , 1975, the book Ashomapto Attojiboni (Unfinished Autobiography) hit the book stores i n India and Bangladesh earlier this week. The 300-page book, based on his diary he had penned in jail, chronicles his upbr inging, family, movements during his life as a student activist, riots in Kolkat a and Bihar, the Partition, Muslim League politics in Kolkata, politics at the i nitial stage of Pakistan, East Pakistan and of Pakistan in general, formation of Awami League and the 1952 Language Movement that sowed the seeds of Bangladesh' s freedom. The book also contains some facsimile of his writings and some of his rare photo graphs.

Interestingly, the book would have been lost to posterity but for a chance very in 2004 by one of Hasina's relatives in a drawer of Sheikh Fazlul Haq nephew of Sheikh Mujib who too was killed along with Bangladesh's founder gust 14-15, 1975. Sheikh Moni was given the diary by Mujib for preparing a copy.

disco Moni, on Au typed

Don't read it as long as I am alive. Read it after my death, those words by Bangabandh u, as Mujib is reverentially called, continue to ring even today, Hasina said as she launched the book in Dhaka. I can remember those words even today, she said in an emotion-choked voice.

For Hasina, the diary was a prized possession. We became very emotional and were gripped by pain when we handed over the notebook to Mohiuddin Ahmed, the owner of University Press Limited for its publication. Hasina wrote the preface of the book and veteran Bangladeshi artist Qayyum Chowd hury has sketched the cover of the Bangla version. University Press Limited (UPL) has published Mujib's diary in Bengali and will a lso publish an English version of the book. Penguin India has taken the copyright to publish Dhaka University professor Fakh rul Alam's English translation. As per the agreement between the two publishing houses, Penguin India will publish the book in several Indian languages includin g Hindi and Tamil. University Press of Pakistan has shown interest to publish the book's Urdu versi on, UPL said. http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/965378/ ------------