A witness on Saturday (25/9), said the Taliban hung the body from a crane in the main square of the city of Herat in western Afghanistan. The gruesome incident marks a return to some of the methods the Taliban used in the past.
Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who operates a pharmacy on the side of the square, told The Associated Press that the four bodies were brought to the main square and the other three bodies moved to other parts of the city for public display.
Seddiqi said the Taliban announced in the square that the four were caught for involvement in the crime of kidnapping and killed by police.
Ziaulhaq Jalali, a Taliban-appointed district police chief in Herat, later said that Taliban members rescued a father and son who had been kidnapped by four kidnappers after a shootout. He said a Taliban member and a civilian were injured by the kidnappers but “four (kidnappers) died in the crossfire.”
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban and the head of Islamic law enforcement when they last ruled Afghanistan, told The Associated Press it was this week that the Taliban would once again implement executions and hand amputations, though perhaps not in public.
Since the Taliban invaded Kabul on August 15 and took control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching whether they will reimpose their harsh rule of the late 1990s. The group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative hardline worldview, even as they embrace technological change, such as video and cell phones. [ah]
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