War crimes in Afghanistan
[5][6][7][8] In its military takeover of Mazar-i-Sharif starting on 8 August 1998, the Taliban shot dead and slit the throats of civilians, mostly Hazaras, and some Tajiks and Uzbeks, from around 10:30 until midday.
In the May 2000 Robotak Pass massacre, 31 people were killed by Taliban forces, among whom 26 were "positively identified as civilians" by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
[2] The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIGRC) called the Taliban's terrorism against the Afghan civilian population a war crime.
[9] According to Amnesty International, the Taliban commit war crimes by targeting civilians, including killing teachers, abducting aid workers and burning school buildings.
A journalist interviewed by Amnesty International said that village elders refusing to cooperate with the Taliban were executed and posthumously accused of being "American spies".
[18] One female human rights activist described the situation in the following manner:[18] "When the Taliban asserted their control over Kunduz, they claimed to be bringing law and order and Shari'a to the city.
"In 2015 in Kunduz, Taliban death squads used a hit list of civilians – "activists, journalists and civil servants", carried out house-to-house searches and killed them.
[4] During the first half of 2021, Taliban forces were responsible for killing 699 civilians according to United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)[19][5] or 917 according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).
On 12 May 2021, Sohail Pardis, who had worked for 16 months as a translator for United States armed forces in Afghanistan, was beheaded by the Taliban after being pulled out of his car.
[8][29][30]The Times reported,with fighting raging on the outskirts of Kandahar, the second city, Nazar Mohammad, an entertainer, was dragged from his home and killed, by suspected Taliban forces.
[35] On 21 August 2021, a video showing Haji Mullah Achakzai, the ex-police chief of Badghis province, was shown blindfolded and restrained before he was shot to death by Taliban fighters at close range.
[38] On 5 September 2021, Arabic-speaking Taliban fighters were singled out as the culprits for murdering a pregnant ex-police officer named Banu Negar in Firozkoh.
[39] According to a Human Rights Watch's report released in November 2021, the Taliban killed or forcibly disappeared more than 100 former members of the Afghan security forces in the three months since the takeover in just the four provinces of Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, and Kunduz.
[41] Amrullah Saleh's son Shuresh stated that his father's brother Rohullah Azizi, who had been executed alongside his driver on 9 September by the Taliban, after being stopped at a checkpoint.
[4] Officially, the Taliban has policies forbidding its members from killing civilians, cutting off certain body parts (e.g., noses and ears), or employing suicide attacks against targets lacking significant military value.
It has established nominally independent commissions and disseminated phone numbers for anonymous reporting of incidents involving civilian attacks by its members, many of whom have been expelled or severely punished for violations.
[45] In December 2001, the Dasht-i-Leili massacre took place, where between 250 and 3,000 Taliban fighters who had surrendered, were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal truck containers during transportation by Northern Alliance forces.
On 21 June 2003, David Passaro, a CIA contractor and former United States Army Ranger, killed Abdul Wali, a prisoner at a US base 16 km (10 mi) south of Asadabad, in Kunar Province.
[66] In November 2014, Amnesty International accused the Pentagon of covering up evidence related to war crimes, torture and unlawful killings in Afghanistan.
Doctors Without Borders officials said: "Their unannounced and forced entry damaged property, destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear for the MSF team.
"[70] The United States Central Command's investigation concluded that personnel failed to comply with the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict, but that the airstrike was not a war crime, due to the lack of intentionality.
The investigation found that the incident resulted from a mixture of human errors and equipment failures, and that none of the personnel knew they were striking a medical facility,[71] Desk analysis by law professor Jens David Ohlin was inconclusive about a war crime being committed.
[73] In September 2018, the United States threatened to arrest and impose sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) judges and other officials if they charged any US soldiers who served in Afghanistan with war crimes.
The Court's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda provided a report that established "a reasonable basis" that crimes had been committed, but they decided against continuing because the US and other parties would not cooperate.
[84] In August 2018, Australia's most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was linked in articles published by the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Canberra Times to a series of war crimes committed in Afghanistan during his tours of duty.
Following the reports release, Prime Minister Scott Morrison established the Office of the Special Investigator to explore the possibility for criminal prosecution of Australian soldiers involved in the deaths of 12 afghan non-combatants.
[95] In May 2009, the US confirmed that Western military forces in Afghanistan use white phosphorus to illuminate targets or as an incendiary to destroy bunkers and enemy equipment.
[99][100] The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) published a brief report after investigating the Taliban takeover of Spin Boldak on 14 July 2021 through "reliable local sources", and interviews with witnesses and victims' families.
[23] On 22 March 2023, the British government launched a public inquiry into alleged extrajudicial killings committed by UKSF personnel in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013, including during the 2012 Shesh Aba raid.
