Taliban Threaten Dutch over Anti-Islam Film

A few days after the anti-Islam film “Fitna” was released on the Internet, the Afghan Taliban claim to have attacked Dutch forces in Afghanistan on Sunday.

The Taliban have declared on the Internet that they launched the two fatal attacks against Dutch soldiers as a response to Geert Wilders' short film that, they say, insulted Islam.

In a communiqué posted on the militants’ websites, the Taliban said operations against the Dutch troops had been initiated, as “one of the members of the Dutch parliament produced a film that hurts Islam, and he published it with bad intentions.”

The declaration referred to two assaults on Sunday which reportedly wounded at least five Dutch soldiers.

100 women also gathered in the center of Kabul Wednesday to protest against the Dutch film. They chanted anti-Dutch slogans and burned the Dutch flag.

The demonstrators urged for the 1,600 Dutch soldiers, who are part of NATO-led forces in the province of Uruzgan, to leave Afghanistan.

The 15-minute film which caused so much controversy was made by the Dutch anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders, and its name, “Fitna,” means “strife” in Arabic. The film shows violent images from the attacks on September 11, 2001, and London and Madrid subways, as well as other graphic scenes, including a beheading. The fragments are separated by aggressive verses from the Koran, which urge Islamists to destroy the “non-believers.” The beginning and the end of the film show a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad, hiding a bomb under his turban, with a ticking sound in the background.

The Dutch ministry said it regretted the film’s release and insisted it did not reflect the Netherlands’ opinion of Islam.