The Taliban have shot dead members of a resistance group fighting against their atrocities in Afghanistan in ISIS-style execution. The gory and disturbing video first shared on the Taliban's group chats shows members of the Taliban randomly shooting at five blindfolded fighters from the resistance group with hands tied behind them.
As the five men are executed, the members of the Taliban can be seen cheering like fanatics. The Taliban posted the horrors committed on the battlefield, emulating ISIS' social media tactics in a bid to instill fear in its enemies. According to reports, the Taliban in recent times have executed dozens of fighters from the resistance group.
Emulating the Tactics of ISIS
According to reports, five fighters who were executed were from the Panjshir resistance group led by Ahmad Massoud. The Taliban later also said that the rebels were from the National Resistance Front, who have been putting up a brave struggle to hold on to their ground ever since the United States withdrew its forces from the country.
Over the past few days, multiple videos have been uploaded that show the Taliban carrying out ISIS-style executions.
In another video, Taliban gunmen can be seen firing automatic guns at two sets of men who are kneeling on a mountainside with their hands tied behind their backs.
The fighters can be heard yelling "Allahu Akbar," and as the captives slump forward, seemingly dead, a man can be heard saying "stop it, stop it."
"Don't waste the bullets," another fighter of the Taliban said.
Later in the video clip, a Taliban fighter can be heard saying that one of the victims is still alive before two Taliban fighters open fire on him. A day after the Taliban claimed that at least 40 NRF fighters had been killed during combat in the Panjshir Valley, footage of the incident went viral.
Completely Inhuman
The scenic Panjshir valley is famed for being a site of Afghan resistance against Soviet forces in the 1980s and an anti-Taliban rebel base during the Islamists' first stint in power. NRF, though, said the Taliban was exaggerating the number of fighters killed.
A top United Nations expert on human rights expressed concerns over the latest situation in Panjshir. Watch this report for more.
However, the Taliban are least bothered and are taking pride in what they are doing as the members of the group can be seen and heard cheering when the NRF fighters are executed.
"Due to a clearance operation against rebels in Rekha, Dara and Afshar areas of Panjshir province, 40 have been killed including four commanders and 100 more have been arrested," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
The NRF said that the men seen shot to death in the video clips were captured during battles in the valley. "The criminal Taliban committed a war crime again by shooting and martyring eight members of the NRF," the insurgent group's spokesman Sibghatullah Ahmadi said.
The Taliban said they are "looking into" the video. The Taliban's leaders appear to have less authority over their foot warriors as they seek international recognition one year after Kabul fell to the Taliban after an abrupt departure of intentional forces.
"We are looking into it to know exactly when these videos were filmed and to know whether they are old," the Taliban's spokesman said.
"But so far, we absolutely don't know about the place, timing of the videos, or who the people in them are."
During the war for Panjshir, many of the civilians had fled the valley, but there had been a lull in recent weeks. According to locals and the insurgent group, the valley has recently seen intense fighting. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) expressed that the claims had them "gravely concerned."
