Beheading of Taliban would be war crime-HRW

Reuters ^ | 6/23/04

[areafiftyone]

KABUL, June 23 (Reuters) - The reported beheading of Taliban captives by Afghan forces this week would be a war crime and the troops and commanders responsible should be put on trial, a U.S.-based human rights group said on Wednesday.

Namatullah Tokhi, commander of the Afghan government's 27th militia division in Zabul province, said on Tuesday soldiers there beheaded four Taliban fighters a day earlier after guerrillas cut off the heads of an Afghan interpreter for U.S.-led forces and an Afghan government soldier.

Summary executions of prisoners were a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and human rights law, said John Sifton, Human Rights Watch representative for Afghanistan.

"If these beheadings actually occurred, it is a very serious incident: the killing of captured prisoners in the context of an international conflict is a war crime," he said.

The soldiers responsible, and the commanders who could have prevented the killings, should be arrested and tried, he said.

"If U.S. or coalition forces were on site during the killings, as they usually are during anti-Taliban operations, and they failed to try to stop the killings, they may be culpable in the crimes as well."

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tucker Mansager told a briefing in Kabul he had no knowledge of any incident in Zabul beyond reports in the media.

Tokhi told Reuters the interpreter and the soldier were beheaded after becoming separated from a patrol of Afghan and U.S.-led foreign troops in the Arghandab district of Zabul.

He said government troops later captured and killed four Taliban guerrillas in the same way.

"They cut off their heads with a knife, so when our forces arrested four Taliban, we cut off their heads too," he said. Contacted again on Wednesday, Tokhi denied speaking to Reuters.

"NOT INVOLVED"

A spokesman for the Defence Ministry said the matter was under investigation, but stressed there was no involvement by the Western-trained Afghan National Army (ANA), a fledgling force fighting militants alongside U.S.-led foreign troops.

Asked if the beheadings took place, he said: "We say that this act has not been carried out by the national army. We are investigating the report."

Militia forces, like Tokhi's, are on the payroll of the defence ministry and fight alongside U.S.-led forces but are not part of the new national army.

Zabul and adjoining southern provinces have been the scene of bloody clashes between Taliban guerrillas and U.S.-led and government forces since the Taliban's overthrow in late 2001.

U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan that year in pursuit of al Qaeda, the militant network sheltered by the Taliban and blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Taliban fighters have beheaded government soldiers in the past, but it is the first time government forces in Zabul have admitted doing the same, marking the escalation of a brutal conflict that has claimed more than 800 lives since last August.

The Taliban and Islamic militant allies, including al Qaeda, have declared a holy war against the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force and consider foreign and local aid workers legitimate targets as well as foreign and government soldiers and officials.

The guerrillas have also vowed to disrupt elections planned for September. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Mirwais Afghan and Sayed Salahuddin)

[ZULU]

Me too.

[veronica]

Is this a frigging joke????

[Dales]

Boy, I munged that up, didn't I?