Afghanistan: Revenge killings despite reform claims

Taliban fighters hunting a journalist shot dead a member of his family and severely injured another, amid reports of torture and a massacre.

TOPSHOT – An Imam speaks next to an armed Taliban fighter during Friday prayers at the Abdul Rahman Mosque in Kabul. Picture: AFP.

Evidence is emerging of Taliban revenge killings even as the group’s leaders are loudly proclaiming a newfound respect for human rights.

Khalil Haqqani, a senior Taliban leader, pledged a new era for Afghanistan when he appeared at a mosque for prayers yesterday. Promising equal respect for men and women and safety for journalists, he was greeted with cheers by the faithful as special forces from his personal bodyguard loomed near by.

His words were at odds with the latest reports from international media and rights organisations.

Taliban fighters hunting a journalist for Germany’s public broadcaster shot dead a member of his family and severely injured another, and a report from Amnesty International has exposed the massacre of nine members of an ethnic minority last month.

Deutsche Welle (DW) said that the Taliban had been conducting a house-to-house search to find the journalist, who was now working in Germany. It said other members of the family escaped at the last moment and were on the run.

Peter Limbourg, the director general of DW, said: “The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves. It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organised searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time.”

The Times has led a campaign for the evacuation and asylum of Afghans who have worked with the British media and are now at risk. Latest events demonstrate the importance of such efforts.

News of the shootings emerged as Amnesty’s report detailed how Taliban fighters had shot and tortured to death nine ethnic Hazara men in Ghazni province last month. Their investigation documents tell how only weeks ago the organisation was singling out and killing members of ethnic minorities, foremost the distinctive Hazara community who adhere to the Shia form of Islam historically despised by the Taliban.

The human rights group said the murders “likely represent a tiny fraction of the total death toll inflicted by the Taliban to date, as the group have cut mobile phone service in many of the areas they have recently captured, controlling which photographs and videos are then shared from these regions”.

The brutality was “a reminder of the Taliban’s past record, and a horrifying indicator of what Taliban rule may bring”, Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said.

Researchers on the ground spoke to witnesses who gave harrowing accounts of the killings, which took place between July 4 and 6 in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district. Six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off.

The UN had separately laid out the threat of reprisals after the Taliban takeover in a report leaked this week.

Already the Taliban were “arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves”, the document said, contradicting the Taliban’s public assurances that they would not seek revenge on those who supported or worked for the toppled government and Nato forces.

A video purporting to show a further incident, the gruesome execution of an Afghan police commander, was published on Twitter last night but could not be immediately verified.

The Taliban had announced an amnesty for those who fought against them or worked for the government, stating that they wanted an end to armed conflict. Those promises have now been undermined by a slew of apparent revenge killings on their way to Kabul.

The Taliban takeover of the capital has left foreign governments waiting to determine whether Afghanistan’s new rulers have changed from the brutal regime that held sway from 1996-2001.

Most Afghans who have opposed the Taliban’s rule are not waiting, however, distrustful that the group have changed and pointing to the kind of conduct documented by Amnesty as evidence that the movement is as dangerous as ever. Afghans formerly linked to the government and others hold the now widespread belief that the Taliban are performing for the cameras only as long as foreign troops remain, and that their real agenda will emerge when foreign firepower is gone.

Thousands of soldiers for the fallen Afghan government are in hiding while others associated with the government have either fled or tried to make it through Taliban checkpoints to the chaotic airport, the centre for foreign evacuation efforts.

The Times