Taliban official says strict punishment, executions, will return

Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi says punishments such as ‘cutting off hands’ was necessary for ‘security’.

One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its strict rule of Afghanistan during the 1990s says the group will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.

In an interview with The Associated Press news agency, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told the AP, speaking in Kabul.