Afghanistan: Taliban open the bodies of kidnappers in public

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A Taliban fighter in Herat province (September 21)

Photo: Stringer / picture alliance / AA

After taking power, the radical Islamic Taliban appear to be returning to the brutal methods of their previous reign of terror.

In Herat, the country's third largest city in the west, Taliban militias publicly hung up the bodies of four men on Saturday.

The men are said to have kidnapped a trader and his son beforehand.

As an eyewitness from the AP news agency reported, the four bodies were first dragged to one of the largest squares in the city, and one of those killed was hung there on a crane. The other bodies were taken to other public places in Herat for display, said Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, a local pharmacist.

Ziaulhaq Jalali, a Taliban-appointed police chief in Herat, told the AP that the Taliban militants had freed the father and his son from the violence of the four kidnappers, the men were killed in the firefight, including one civilian and one Taliban been injured.

This is how Lieutenant Governor Maulaui Schir Achmed Amar, who was also appointed by the Taliban, presented it to the dpa news agency. The men "were hung up so that no one dared to commit such crimes," said Amar.

Videos from Herat were circulating on the Internet showing the crane with the corpse hung up and some onlookers filming with their mobile phones.

more on the subject

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• International diplomacy: At the table with the TalibanBy Matthias Gebauer, New York

• US drone attack on civilians in Kabul: A fatal mistakeBy Roland Nelles, Washington

• Foreign minister at G20 meeting: Maas makes four demands on the new Taliban government

Meanwhile, in eastern Afghanistan at least one person was killed when an explosive device exploded near a Taliban convoy.

Seven other people were injured in the incident on Saturday morning in Nangarhar province, local media and sources reported.

A Taliban spokesman confirmed an explosion in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, without giving details.

Local media reported, citing eyewitnesses, that a roadside bomb had detonated as the convoy crossed the area.

In Nangarhar, once a stronghold of the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS), which was hostile to the Taliban, the number of targeted killings and explosions has increased since the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August.

The IS had claimed some of the most recent attacks.

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