Taliban militants kill 16 civilians in Afghanistan’s Kunduz
At least 16 passengers of a number of buses have been killed by militants affiliated with the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, local officials say.
The militants seized several buses in Aliabad District in the volatile province of Kunduz on Tuesday, pulled out their passengers and “shot dead 16 passengers and they are still holding more than 30 others,” said Seyyed Mahmood Danish, spokesman for the governor of the province.
The buses were transporting about 200 passengers when they were stopped by the militants.
Police commander Shir Aziz Kamawal, however, said the militants killed 17 passengers. “They (Taliban) have released some passengers but are holding many others. None of the passengers were wearing military uniform, but some may have been former police.”
According to local residents of the militancy-prone district, the Taliban set up an informal court in a local mosque, interrogated the passengers and scrutinized their ID documents for any possible links to the government in Kabul.
The Taliban have so far not commented on the deadly incident, which is the latest assault since it appointed Haibatullah Akhundzada as its new leader last week.
The killing occurred a day after Hismatullah Daulatzai, police chief for the greater Helmand zone, announced that nearly 60 Afghan police had been killed by Taliban militants over the past two days.
The killing occurred near Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand.
He said as many as 24 police lost their lives on Monday and another 33 were killed on Sunday. Daulatzai added that the Taliban may have abducted seven other policemen as they are still missing.
Local sources said clashes erupted after dozens of Taliban militants attacked police outposts in the area.
The attacks in the southern, opium poppy-producing region of Helmand come days after Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was reportedly killed in a US drone strike in western Pakistan.
Mansour was believed to be the key figure in Taliban’s large network of opium trade in Helmand. The militant group has vowed to avenge Mansour’s death.
According to a Tuesday report by Amnesty International, at least 1.2 million Afghans have been internally displaced due to violence in the past three years.
Estimates show that about 200,000 people have been killed in less than three decades of Taliban militancy in Afghanistan.
The government in Kabul has undertaken a series of initiatives for peace with the group, although fighting continues unabated across the country.
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