BBC journo's call for broadcasting "human side" of Taliban raises a stink

London, Aug 25 : A British journalist working with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the past 25 years has shocked many by saying that the Corporation must show the human side of the Taliban, who, she said, were a "very diverse group of people" and some of them would be wanting to talk to the British Government and not fight against British troops.

"It may sound odd but the humanity of the Taliban, because they are a wide, very diverse group of people," she said while replying to a question as to what was missing in the media coverage, reported The Sun.

Canadian-born news presenter Lyse Doucet (49) told the Edinburgh TV: "Some would like to talk to the British Government. Some of them don't want to be fighting British troops. Some of them would. This is the ideological Taliban."

Criticising the reporting of Prince Harry's Army service in Afghanistan, she said: "You knew the bombs were dropping and the guns were pointing in that direction, but you never got a sense of how Afghans are as a people."

Doucet's remarks were criticised last night by Tory MP and ex-Army officer Patrick Mercer. He said: "Comments like this can only add hugely to the grief of relatives of the fallen."

Lyse's astonishing statement comes as an 'Apache' gunship hero revealed the fanatics aim to capture a British soldier and "skin him live" on the Internet.

Military Cross winner Ed Macy - whose book Apache is serialised in The Sun from today - tells how an intelligence officer gave details of the Taliban butchers' sick plan. It made Army Air Corps Warrant Officer Macy and his comrades even more determined to rescue a mortally wounded Marine from a Taliban stronghold - which they did with four soldiers strapped to the outside of two Apaches.

But, BBC World News correspondent Doucet claimed the public also want to seeing the kinder side of the Afghan extremists.

ANI