For the Taliban, A Crime That Pays -- Newsweek
How ransom kidnappings, once a rarity in most of Afghanistan, have become a cash source second only to the narcotics trade for the country's insurgents
There were no seats left on the Kandahar-to-Kabul flight, so Johan Freckhaus decided to take a chance and return to Afghanistan's capital by car. After nine years in the country, the construction executive understood the danger, but with his long beard and fluency in Dari, the nation's most widely spoken language, he could pass for an Afghan. He might have made it, if one guerrilla at a highway checkpoint in Ghazni province hadn't searched the car carefully enough to find Freckhaus's hidden French passport.
The contractor was promptly shackled with tire chains, blindfolded and hauled away. For the next three weeks, the kidnappers moved him around the countryside every night before setting him free on June 19 this year. According to the commander of the Taliban fighters who grabbed Freckhaus, French authorities paid roughly $1.5 million for the hostage.
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My Comment: You have to feed and pay your soldiers. The Taliban are not fighting for free. Expect Nato and their coalition partners to target the Taliban's sources for funds and monies in Afghanistan and across in Pakistan.
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