Taliban responsible for massacre of nine Hazara men: Amnesty

‘Cold-blooded brutality’ of killings is a ‘horrifying indicator of what Taliban rule may bring’, Agnes Callamard says.

Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of Afghanistan’s Ghazni province last month, Amnesty International has said in a new report. In the findings published on Thursday, witnesses gave accounts of the killings which took place from July 4 to 6 in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district. The accounts undermine the Taliban’s claims that it has changed. The Hazara community is Afghanistan’s third-largest ethnic group, with mostly Shia Muslims. They have long faced discrimination in the Sunni majority country and were previously persecuted by the Taliban.