The Taliban regime said it was “reviewing” a video posted on social media on Wednesday that appears to show its fighters summarily executing Afghan insurgents after they were captured.
The National Resistance Front (FNR), a task force led by Ahmad Massoud, son of legendary commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, said the video showed the execution of some of its fighters and accused the Taliban of “war crimes”.
The video, widely shared on social media, shows two groups of men crouching on a hill with their hands tied behind their backs, before Taliban fighters shoot them with automatic rifles.
Uploads in the last 24 hours
Fighters can be heard shouting “Allah Akbar” (God is greatest), and one man saying “Stop, stop” once the captives have collapsed, apparently dead.
Analysis of the clip by AFP’s video verification software showed that the first versions of the footage appeared to have been uploaded within the last 24 hours.
“We are looking into the matter to find out exactly when these videos were shot and to find out if they are old,” deputy government spokesman Bilal Karimi told AFP.
“But as of now, we have absolutely no idea where or when these videos were shot and who the people are in them,” he added.
Captured during the clashes in the valley
The video went viral a day after the Taliban announced that their forces had killed at least 40 FNR fighters in the Panchir valley, 80km north of Kabul.
The FNR said that the people executed in the video were captured during clashes in the valley.
“The Taliban criminals (…) have committed a war crime again by killing eight members of the FNR,” said the insurgent group’s spokesman, Sibghatullah Ahmadi, on Twitter.
“Deeply Concerned”
The United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said Wednesday night “deeply concerned” by the latest reports of “extrajudicial summary executions in Panchir.” “I call for an immediate and thorough investigation and for its perpetrators to be held accountable,” he tweeted.
The FNR was the last group to resist the Taliban takeover of the country, before seeing their stronghold of Panchir fall to their hands in September 2021.
In May, the FNR announced that it had launched a wide-ranging offensive against the Taliban in the north of the country, and there have been localized clashes between the two sides.
The valley was made famous in the late 1980s by Ahmad Shah Massoud, before Al Qaeda assassinated him in 2001.
Source: BFM TV
