Taliban terrorists executed more than twenty Afghan commandos as they tried to surrender
Gunfire erupts. At least a dozen men are seen shot to death amid cries of “Allahu Akhbar” — God is Great.
The victims were members of an Afghan Special Forces unit: their executioners, the Taliban. The summary killings took place on June 16 in the town of Dawlat Abad in Faryab province, close to Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan.
CNN has obtained and verified several videos of the incident and has spoken with witnesses.
Videos show the commandos’ bodies strewn across an outdoor market. After a fierce battle to hold the town, the commandos had run out of ammunition and were surrounded by the Taliban fighters, witnesses said.
In one video, about 45 seconds long, a bystander can be heard saying in Pashto, the local language: “Don’t shoot them, don’t shoot them, I beg you don’t shoot them.” The bystander then asks: “How are you Pashtun killing Afghans?” The Pashtuns are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan.
At the end of the video, another voice off-camera says: “Take everything off them.”
In another video, a man can be heard saying: “Open his body armor.” One fighter can be seen taking equipment off the body of one of the commandos.
The killing of the soldiers stands in stark contrast to the Taliban’s efforts to show it is accepting the surrender of soldiers and, in some instances, paying them to go home as it makes territorial gains across Afghanistan.
The Taliban posted a video three days after the fighting in Dawlat Abad, showing the seizure of military trucks and weapons. The video claimed that “the Washington guards, a CIA specially trained special commando who had been pursuing the Taliban in Dawlat Abad, Faryab, were captured alive by the Taliban, disarmed and handcuffed.”
The Taliban has denied the alleged executions, stating in a Twitter post on Wednesday that the accusation is “fictitious” and accusing CNN of fabricating video evidence.
“The report is from a fake scene combined with footage from another where 22 commandos were killed during clashes while carrying out an operation in Faryab province,” a Taliban spokesperson wrote.
In a statement to CNN Wednesday, Afghan Ministry of Defence spokesperson Fawad Aman said the executions constitute a “war crime.” “This is not the first time the Taliban have shot dead our soldiers. The Taliban have no mercy on anyone; From the military to innocent civilians are executed. The Taliban cannot deny this crime. The video clearly shows the Taliban executing our soldiers after surrender,” Aman stated.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International UK said that the killings amounted to a war crime.
“This deeply disturbing footage is horrific and gives insight into the increasingly desperate situation enveloping in Afghanistan. What we are witnessing is the cold-blooded murder of surrendering soldiers — a war crime,” the group said after CNN’s reporting on the killings first aired Monday.
Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s South Asia Campaigner, said: “This evidence suggests that the Taliban’s persistent claims to have changed their ways are predicated on a lie and completely undermines their claims that they will respect human rights in the peace process.”
She added that Afghan authorities should “launch an immediate investigation into this reprehensible act,” and if they failed to bring perpetrators to justice, “the international community and the International Criminal Court must step in.”
According to several witnesses interviewed by CNN in Dawlat Abad, the commandos were shot in cold blood.
One man said the commandos arrived in the town with several tanks but ran out of ammunition after two hours of fighting and received no support from the air.
“The commandos were surrounded by the Taliban. Then they brought them into the middle of the street and shot them all,” the witness said.
He also suggested some Taliban fighters were not from the region and may have been foreign because he could not understand what they were saying when they spoke between themselves.
A second witness — a shopkeeper in the bazaar where the shooting took place — agreed some of the Taliban sounded foreign. He said the commandos “were not fighting. They all put their hands up and surrendered, and (the Taliban) were just shooting.”
Another shopkeeper corroborated this account: “I was so scared when the Taliban started shooting the commandos. On that day everyone was scared. I was hiding in my shop.”
He said he watched the shooting unfold through a small hole in the wall.
Local officials have criticized the dispatch of elite commandos to the town with no reinforcement or air cover.
Abdul Ahad Ailbek, a member of Faryab’s Provincial Council, said the force that arrived did not know the area, nor which districts the Taliban controlled.
Source: CNN
