Daily US Times: Taliban fighters have executed 22 Afghan commandos who were unarmed, a video over clear but unsteady revealed. In the video, the words ring out: “Surrender, commandos, surrender.” Several men emerge from a building; they are clearly not armed.
Gunfire erupts right after that and at least a dozen men are seen shot to death amid cries of “Allahu Akhbar” — God is Great.
The victims were commandos of an Afghan Special Forces unit: they were executed by Taliban gunmen. The killings took place on June 16 this year in the town of Dawlat Abad, which is close to Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan.
Videos show the bodies of Afghan commandos strewn across an outdoor market. Witnesses said that after a fierce battle to hold the town, the commandos had run out of ammunition and were surrounded by the Taliban fighters.
In one video, which is about 45 seconds long, a bystander can be heard saying in the local language Poshto: “Don’t shoot them, don’t shoot them, I beg you don’t shoot them.”
“How are you Pashtun killing Afghans?” the bystander then asks.
The Pashtuns are the main ethnic group in the country.
Another voice off-camera says at the end of the video: “Take everything off them.”
A man can be heard saying in another video: “Open his body armor.” One fighter can be seen taking equipment off the body of one of the commandos.
The Red Cross confirmed the 22 commandos’ bodies were retrieved.
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