And so the bar has been lowered (just when you thought it could not be) again on the barbarism shown by 21st century terrorists. But, then, if terrorists of varying stripes didn’t care about blowing men, women and children up in buildings or while they’re a work in a high rise, or beheading innocents on camera so it’s on the Internet, in a way it’s not surprising that they’d storm a MOUNTAIN where tourists were climbing and murder them there. But, yes, it has happened now — in Pakistan:
Gunmen stormed a camp on Pakistan’s second-largest mountain Sunday, killing nine foreign climbers, including a U.S. citizen, in a brazen assault that could deal a blow to the country’s efforts to jumpstart its tourism industry.
Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it retribution for a suspected U.S. drone strike last month that killed Wali ur-Rehman, the second-highest-ranking leader of the terrorist group.
“Through this killing we gave a message to international community to ask U.S. to stop drone strikes,” said Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Taliban spokesman.
The attack in northern Pakistan at Nanga Parbat, the world’s ninth-tallest mountain, occurred around 1 a.m. as the climbers and their guides were at a camp at about 4,000 feet above sea level. According to local and regional officials, about a dozen gunmen tied up the climbers’ Pakistani guides before shooting the climbers as they slept in tents.
The attackers reportedly wore police uniforms, an increasingly common tactic Taliban militants have used to evade scrutiny.
In all, 10 people were killed, including five from Ukraine, three from China and one from Russia, according to preliminary information from Pakistani authorities. At least one Pakistani guide also was killed in the attack. At least one Chinese tourist survived and was later rescued from the area, known as Fairy Meadows, officials said.
So, basically, they climbed a mountain so they could shoot people and then issue a statement about drones. The drone part will be lost on many who will (rightfully) see this as a willful butchering of innocents — one that can never be justified or even try to be justified by calling them “collateral damage.” And, in fact, it’s a good argument why carefully pinpointed drone attacks that don’t end in collateral damage are important to battle against groups such as the Taliban.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.