Afghanistan: More than 100 former security forces apparently killed or disappeared

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Taliban fighters patrol Kabul: the Islamists took power in Afghanistan in August

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WAKIL KOHSAR / AFP

For the Taliban, security forces who had placed themselves in the service of the previous government are considered traitors.

With the advance of the Islamists, fear of revenge grew among former members of the military and police.

A report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) now shows that this fear is well founded.

Numerous former government security forces have disappeared or been executed since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. Taliban forces executed or disappeared more than 100 former soldiers, police officers and intelligence officers in four of the country's 34 provinces, according to a report that has now been published.

On 25 pages, the report documents the killings or disappearances of former members of the security forces - military, police, secret service or pro-government militias - who surrendered or were arrested by the Taliban between August 15 and the end of October.

The HRW investigations had shown that more than 100 former members of the security forces had been killed or disappeared in the provinces of Gasni, Helmand, Kandahar and Kunduz alone.

Former government data used

The Taliban's leadership had instructed its members to register members of units that had surrendered to them.

You could also have access to abandoned employment records of the former government.

They used the data to arrest or kill ex-security forces.

The Taliban leadership had already declared a general amnesty for all security forces many months before they came to power and reaffirmed this several times after the fall of the capital Kabul. Most of the provinces and the capital, Kabul, fell to the Islamists for the most part without a fight. The security forces surrendered en masse in several provinces.

"The amnesty promised by the Taliban did not prevent local commanders from executing former security forces," said Patricia Gossmann, head of the Asia department at HRW.

In response to the findings of the HRW report, the Taliban stated that they had dismissed 755 members responsible for abuses and established military tribunals for murder, torture and illegal arrests.

However, no information was provided to support their claim.

asc / AFP