British journalist Yvonne Ridley, Taliban captive tells her story and the conspiracy of western Intelligence Agencys to have her killed

Taliban police arrested Ridley in September when she was trying to enter the tribal regions of Pakistan via unusual paths in Jalalabad province's Door Rubaya district dressed in the all-enveloping abaya.

She was initially held in Jalalabad and later shifted to Kabul. Immediately after her release and arrival in Pakistan, when asked by a massive crowd of journalists about her treatment by the Taliban, she said they were like brothers.

On her release and return to England Yvonne Ridley Tolf the said that she had not seen such noble, brave and straight-forward men like the Taliban in all her life.

At a Human rights Conference held at the University of Leicester in England on the 12th May 2002 the right wing British Journalist Yvonne Ridley who was arrested and held by the Taliban made some startling statements concerning Islam and her treatment at the hands of the taliban."When I was released everyone expected me to relay horrific tales of brutality (but the) Taliban treated me with great respect" and with great deliberation she added "..very very well". She went on to say that whilst the taliban had its faults but they were on the whole 'likeable'. However this was not what the west wanted to hear, they could not be seen to be bombing a people who were 'likeable.
In exchange for her treatment at the hands of the Taliban she promised them she would read the Koran upon her return to the UK.

As a result of this she claimed that what she discovered about Islam was an eye opener , describing Islam as "a great unifier, a religion of social justice, it transcends race and national borders. Islam has inspired more Scholars, mystics and poets then soldiers" going on to say "since the crusades the west has held a stereotypical image of Islam, (that) women are subjugated is a nonsense. I admire the way it supports and promotes women." adding how people often mix up religion and cultures.

Source : indybay

The CIA Wanted Me Killed

Journalist Yvonne Ridley Says Intelligence Agencys Wanted Her Killed to Build Support
for War on Afghanistan

By Jo Dillon
The Independent

Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist captured by the Taliban, this week makes the extraordinary claim that Western intelligence agencies tried to get her killed to bolster public support for the air strikes on Afghanistan.

In her new book, In The Hands of the Taliban, published tomorrow, Express journalist Ms Ridley, 43, says despite her release from captivity she still has "unfinished business" surrounding her time in Afghanistan.

She claims that on her return to Pakistan she found her hotel room had been searched. In London, the locks on her Soho flat had apparently been tampered with. A journalist on the Arab TV station Al Jazeera then showed her a collection of as yet unverified documents. They purported to be copies of a dossier of personal and financial papers and pictures.

When told they had been handed to the Taliban, Ms Ridley asked: "Who the hell was trying to get me shot?"

With the help of prominent QC Michael Mansfield, the Al Jazeera journalist, Nacer Bedri, and contacts in the security and intelligence services, Ms Ridley is now trying to piece together what happened.

She says the documents were photocopies of genuine-looking Inland Revenue tax returns and the title deeds to a previous London home owned by her. There was also a copy of an Israeli passport belonging to her third husband, Hermosh, along with a Mossad code number and ID card also said to belong to him. The figures in the financial documents were exaggerated, Ms Ridley said. Also in the bundle was a photograph of Ms Ridley, Hermosh and her daughter Daisy, now aged nine, "taken on a river in Iran when you entered the country illegally".

Ms Ridley's book says: "I looked at the picture again and initially laughed, when I realised it had been taken in October 1998 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Then an awful feeling came to my stomach and I wanted to vomit. I remembered where I had last seen that picture--in my top drawer at my new flat in Soho. I had kicked out Husband No 3 a couple of weeks after those pictures were taken; they weren't developed until later--after he had gone. So who had been in my flat?"

Ms Ridley is convinced the intelligence services must have somehow been involved--and has vowed to prove it. "Without giving too much away, I can say the matter isn't going to rest," she said yesterday.

The publication of her book and the claims it makes are certain to throw Ms Ridley back into the spotlight--a place that has not been particularly comfortable for her since she was captured by the Taliban on 28 September and after her release on 8 October.

Ms Ridley was lambasted for making a "foolhardy" decision to go into Afghanistan with a number of commentators accusing her of being "selfish" for taking such a risk as a single mother.

Others raised questions about Ms Ridley's time in Afghanistan, one report claiming that rather than being captured in the country where she was carrying out a newspaper investigation; she was picked up over the border in Pakistan and had never entered Afghanistan.

On her return, Ms Ridley was criticised for failing to pay enough attention in her account of her ordeal to the two guides--then still in prison--captured helping her or the aid workers held alongside her. Early reviews of her book were far from flattering. But Ms Ridley is determined to get to the bottom of her own story.