How in the wide, wide world of sports did the Taliban get AHEAD of them while crossing the mountains.
shareI'm wondering too!!! One explanation is that the terrorists predicted the team's route and met them on the other side, and maybe drove there, or even flew there given that the trip thru the mountains took several days. But then wouldn't they have had the time to gather a much larger terrorist force?
shareMaybe they know the country better than the foreigners, another they used trucks.
shareI thought the EXACT same thing. I could have forgiven this, had I heard the thump of helicopter blades at some point that would have indicated the bad guys made the obvious tactical move and leapfrogged them.
Internet courage is such a yawn.
Why would they use a helicopter, when we haven't seen one before, but saw loads of Toyota wagons? There are almost always alternatives to a mountain pass. The French did not use the 5,000 metre pass because it was the only one, but because it was the shortest route with the least chance of running into people. The Taliban had four days, they would have piled into a car and would have comfortably driven the long way round to the other end of the passage. So they leapfrogged them, but with simple means. At least that was my reading.
And would they need more than a handful of fighters? They knew the French group was down to four soldiers, one of them badly wounded, and was hiking up into a forbidding mountain area with subzero temperatures. They could well expect an even more decimated troop on the other side (simply through hypothermia and frostbite)...
What does not hold up is a 5,000 metre pass in the Taliban lands in western Pakistan. The southern reaches of the Hindu Kush are not that high... (but of course: without this, we wouldn't have a story!)
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"I only watch box sets. Soya latte anyone?" (GuardianOnline reader CameronYJ)
Taliban use RPG-7s for EVERYTHING.
Anti - tank,
Anti - personnel
anti - bunker
jet packs
EVERYTHING!