16 October 2004	Saturday	01 Ramazan 1425

AMMAN, Oct 15: A militant group threatened on Friday to attack the producers and broadcasters of a televised love story set during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan if it insults the former hard line government.

Several Arab television stations are to begin broadcasting the series, The Road to Kabul, during Ramazan. "This is a warning for all those who contributed to making this soap opera, actors, producers, cameramen, if it contains insults to the Taliban," said an Internet statement by a previously unknown group calling itself the Mujahedeen Brigades of Iraq and Syria.

"We will strike, God willing, satellite channels showing this soap opera and their correspondents as well as their offices in Iraq and Syria," the statement continued. The Jordanian production is one of many soap operas due to be shown during Ramazan, the time of year when television stations throughout the Arab world broadcast their biggest-budget productions and when families spend the most time watching television.

"We notice today that (those who made the soap opera) have made every effort to attack Islam" at the beginning of Ramazan, the statement said. The series, featuring Jordanian and Syrian actors, recounts the relationship between a young Afghan woman and an Arab man who meet in London and then return to live in Kabul.

Their love story is told against the backdrop of recent Afghan history, from the Soviet occupation of the 1980s through the emergence of the Taliban to the US-led invasion of the country in Oct 2001. -AFP