Posted on 07/17/2010 7:43:45 PM PDT by csvset
A Gurkha soldier has been flown back to the UK after hacking the head off a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity.
The private, from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, was involved in a fierce firefight with insurgents in the Babaji area of central Helmand Province when the incident took place earlier this month.
His unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man. Deadly: A platoon of Gurkhas demonstrate their skill with their kukri knives in a training exercise, after it is revealed that one of their regiment chopped off the head of a Taliban fighter in order to find proof of ID
Deadly: A platoon of Gurkhas demonstrate their skill with their kukri knives in a training exercise, after it is revealed that one of their regiment chopped off the head of a Taliban fighter in order to find proof of ID
The Gurkhas had intended to remove the Taliban leader’s body from the battlefield for identification purposes.
But they came under heavy fire as their tried to do so. Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha took out his curved kukri knife and beheaded the dead insurgent.
He is understood to have removed the man’s head from the area, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.
This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
We should fast track him for American citizenship.
...made of pork rinds, bacon grease, lard, jowls, trotters, and bristles.
Oops. Forgot to add the SQUEAL.
I FReep with a Kukri in front of me on the wall. I bought it off a Nepali farmer who needed the money for his wife’s doctor’s visit. I overpaid him a bit: $10 in 1982. Sharp as a razor, and will take off a head in one whack.
The Brits are making a huge mistake, they should send many more Gurkha’s to the theater, not bring this one out.
I said at the beginning of The Modern West’s War With Islam that we should hire and form provisional battalions of Gurkas and perhaps Sikhs. They know how to deal with Islamics.
I remain convinced that this was and is a good idea, and this news story is just one more reason why.
The Brit soldiers are tough as nails and are most excellent troops.....its their “Upper Crust” and government that sucks....kinda like the USA, really.
Ha Ha ! Laugh of the day !
I select Nepal as the 51st state ! Two Divisions of Gurkha’s please.
Oh, and 125+/- years ago, here is how the British fought wars in this part of the world. My, how things have changed. I posted this poem a number of times in the wake of 9/11, for all the obvious reasons:
The Grave of the Hundred Head
Rudyard Kipling
There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.
Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.
They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face -
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race -
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.
For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state,
With fifty file of Burmans
To open him Heaven’s gate.
The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay -
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.
Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.
The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.
Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,
Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village -
The village of Pabengmay,
And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.
They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.
Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below -
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.
Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris -
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.
Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a white man’s head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.
There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
The only foreign fighting forces I’ve seen up close that put some fear in me were the French Foreign Legion and the Gurkhas.
There is a self-leveling mechanism built in. It may still be a while before it kicks in, though.
I have read that back in the day when we were fighting Muslims in tbe Philippines, our guys would bury the rebel dead with pig entrails as a mortal final insult.
thet would be true....under Blackjack Pershing......and the practice virtually ended the uprising.....you have to be tough to win !!!!
ping
Give the warrior a medal and send him to the White House.
This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.
That makes it all the better. If the Brits don't want Gurkhas anymore we should invite them to become Americans.
Kukri ping
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