Afghanistan: Taliban executed dissidents, captives without trial
The Afghan Taliban captured and led 27 men and then shot them in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley last month during an offensive against resistance fighters in the area. The group’s earlier claims that the men were killed in battle were refuted. A verified video of the killings showed five men blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs.
Without trial
The investigation, conducted by Afghan Witness, an open-source project run by the UK’s non-profit Information Resilience Center, ABC News, revealed the Taliban’s use of brutal tactics against opposition forces and their supporters. Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed a harsher and harsher rule, even as they press for international recognition of their government, David Osborne said : The report provides “the clearest example” of the Taliban’s “systematic purge” of resistance fighters, with dozens of video and photo analysis from social media – mostly video footage – linking a group to the deaths of 10 Taliban fighters in Panjshir province, including the five killed in another 17 cases outside Panjshir.
The court’s scope is governed by other social media images, all showing dead men with their hands tied behind their backs. Videos and photos of Taliban fighters with bodies helped to establish their geographic location and time locations, and provided close-up footage of the fighters at the scene. These were compared to other videos suspected of photographing the group.
“Using open source techniques, we came up with the facts about the summary and the systematic execution of a group of men in the Panjshir valley in mid-September,” Osborne said. “At the time of their execution, the detainees were chained, posing no threat to their Taliban captors.”
War crimes
For his part, Spokesperson for the Minister of Defense, Inayatullah Al-Khwarizmi said that a delegation is investigating the videos published on social media, stressing that it will not be able to give more details because the investigation is ongoing. Last month, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban-run government, was quoted as saying: “The Taliban killed 40 resistance fighters and captured more than 100 in Panjshir. He did not give details on how the 40 men died. The US network confirmed that forces fighting in the mountainous Panjshir valley north of Kabul – a remote area that had previously challenged the invaders – had emerged from the last vestiges of the broken Afghan security forces.
They vowed to resist the Taliban after they overran the country in August 2011. Ali Nazari said, “The Afghan National Taliban have committed these war crimes, and they have given proof of the Taliban’s crimes. The Afghan witness said he had credible evidence that 30 others were killed in the Taliban’s offensive last month against alleged resistance fighters in Panjshir.
