Afghanistan: the war crimes of the Taliban in Panjshir, including armed attacks against civilians, torture, arbitrary killings and collective punishments

ROME – The title of the new dossier by Amnesty International on Afghanistan is emblematic: “Your sons are in the Mountains”: The collective punishment of civilians In Panjshir by the Taliban” (Your children are in the mountains”: it is the collective punishment of civilians in Panjshir by the Taliban). The work documents the serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed by the Taliban including extrajudicial executions, torture, arrests and mass arbitrary detentions. After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, members of the former national government’s security forces fled to Panjshir with equipment and weapons and joined the National Resistance Front. Since then the Taliban have targeted the civilian population of this province to force them into submission and obedience and thus bring down the members of the Front.

Major war crimes. The list of crimes committed by the Taliban in Panjshir is long: extrajudicial executions, torture, hostage-taking, illegal detentions and burning of civilian homes. A set of individual attacks against specific people, which together amount to forms of collective punishment, which in turn constitute a war crime. The Taliban have so far arrested all adult men and boys in the villages of Panjhir, detained them without charge and subjected them to violence and abuse. They also imposed night curfews to restrict people’s movement, seized the homes of local citizens and prevented shepherds from accessing pastures.

Mass extrajudicial executions. The report documents several cases of extrajudicial mass executions of National Resistance Front fighters by Islamic fundamentalists. In September 2022, a group of six people were executed on a mountain in Darah district, Panjshir. Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab – a multidisciplinary team that uses digital investigative tools to remotely document human rights abuses – analyzed five videos of executions in this province. The first document shows Taliban members escorting six men with their hands tied behind their backs up a steep hill.

Chilling videos. Interviewees identified all six as National Resistance Front fighters: Mohammad-u Din, Ishaq, Daniyar, Modir Ahmad, Amir Hatam and Mohammad Yar. In later videos, the detainees’ eyes are covered with bandages and the gunmen are positioned high up behind them. In the following images, the same gunmen are seen shooting for approximately nineteen seconds. Five convicts die and their bodies slide downstream. The weapons used are fully automatic rifles and Kalashnikovs, making it difficult to determine the exact number of shots fired.

Unlawful detentions, torture and other ill-treatment. In at least three cases, the Taliban tortured to death civilians arrested in Bazarak and Rokha districts, also in Panjshir province. The men were farmers and breeders, tortured to death because – according to Islamic fundamentalists – they worked in the mountains without the permission of local officials. Since returning to power, the Taliban have systematically detained men and boys for their suspected affiliation with the National Resistance Front. The arrests largely took place between May and August 2022. The capture of family members of suspected Front fighters, the mass arrest and detention of civilians, and the torture and unlawful killing of shepherds are all examples of the campaign of punishments collectives that the Taliban are carrying out in Panjshir. Other intimidation tactics documented in the Amnesty report include the seizure and long-term destruction of property owned by local citizens and the imposition of restrictions on movement.

Ensuring justice. There is no reliable court in Afghanistan that can identify and judge those responsible for rights violations. For this reason Amnesty International calls on the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent international mechanism for Afghanistan, with a mandate to monitor and report on the situation in the country and to collect and preserve evidence of crimes committed by the Taliban for future international justice.