Kidnapped Rock Climbers Escape in Kyrgyzstan

Wilderness and revolution....

Four American rock climbers - 3 men and a woman in their 20's - arrived home this week after spending six days as involuntary "guests" of guerillas in the high country of Kyrgyzstan in former Soviet Central Asia.

The original reports said that Kyrgyz soldiers rescued them. It turns out they rescued themselves. One of the two gunmen guarding them went to get some batteries for his radio. Then the other gunman let his guard down momentarily and was last seen bouncing down a cliff. The rest was an 18 mile run in rough terrain on no food and no water and lots of adrenaline, to get to the nearest government army post.

Here's a Real Audio link to NPR - All Things Considered.

Or, for print stories, go to Yahoo News and do a keyword search on Kyrgyzstan.


------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
Kyrgyzstan has some very high mountains, basically the west end of the Himalayas, right where the range does a hard right turn to the northwest to become the Tien Shan mountains on the west border of Chinese Turkestan.

And the region has some hard-core religious and ethnic political "stuff" going on. Leonid Brezhnev had no idea what he was starting when he rolled the tanks into Afghanistan.

The radio interview with the woman climber in the group was very interesting. She sounded almost like a little girl, and she is little - 5 feet tall, 80 pounds, probably all coil-spring muscle. She didn't want to talk much about the guard they shoved over the edge. They are presumably nice people who don't delight in pushing even bad guys off cliffs. They didn't stay around long enough to see what became of him, but she hinted that surviving a fall like that would be improbable.


------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
Originally posted by James Mattis:
She didn't want to talk much about the guard they shoved over the edge. They are presumably nice people who don't delight in pushing even bad guys off cliffs. They didn't stay around long enough to see what became of him, but she hinted that surviving a fall like that would be improbable.
Click to expand...

A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do.
biggrin.gif


------------------
Hoodoo

Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?

The Merchant of Venice, Act IV. Scene I.
 
I wouldnt have just pushed him off a cliff, i would have followed him down,got his rifle and shot him,just to make sure he was dead.
cool.gif


------------------
bu then again,what do i know???
 
The cliff was apparently not the sort where you would want to follow your enemy down it, unless you wanted to get in line with him at the pearly gates, to find out whose side God was really on.

They were too busy putting distance between themselves and the other bad guys, in any case.


------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
oh,oh well.

did anyone find my reply disturbing?

------------------
bu then again,what do i know???
 
That's right, James, nowadays it's the fashion to kidnap relatively rich westerners and ask for a ransom.

Some time ago some Moros from Jolo went to a diving resort(Sipadan) off Malaysia and kidnapped abt a dozen or so Europeans, bringing them back to the Philipines. There was an American couple, but they ran off into the jungle and escaped....

The leader of the kidnappers was a gentleman calling himself "COMMANDER ROBOT"....fortunately most of the hostages have been released after payment was made...

Initially the kidnappers took a busload of local school children, but the army was not interested....it is assumed that the children are all dead....better to get some westerners...

Rich westerners--mmmmmmmm....

Regards from SYK
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top