Mass grave found in Afghanistan
Hundreds of men - probably Taliban prisoners killed by their Northern Alliance captors - are buried in a mass grave in northern Afghanistan, a US human rights group has said.
US-based Physicians for Human Rights said its investigations near the city of Mazar-e-Sharif indicate that the men in the mass grave may have died after they surrendered to Northern Alliance soldiers.
Many in the alliance - a key US ally in the war that defeated the Taliban regime - now make up the interim Afghan government.
Dr Jenny Leaning, a board member of the Boston-based organisation, said yesterday that they are trying to get protection for the grave site, now threatened by dogs and men scavenging earth filled with bones, prayer caps, beads, trousers and more.
Dr Leaning, who discovered the site, asked that a small group of international soldiers cordon off the area until it can be investigated, the numbers of bodies determined and their identities uncovered.
The task would then begin of finding out how they died.
‘‘It isn’t at all clear who was responsible,’’ she said.
Afghan commanders loyal to a variety of groups were operating in the area, as were US troops, further complicating the issue, she said.
‘‘At the time, the US was very active in the air and on the ground. What did the US know and when and where and what did they do about it?,’’ she asked.
At Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, spokesman Colonel Rick Thomas said he
was not aware of the groups claims.
He said others in recent days had asked about allegations that Taliban prisoners had been executed while US special forces soldiers stood by and watched.
‘‘We checked and didn’t have anything’’ to substantiate those allegations, Col Thomas said.
The Physician for Human Rights said its report was made public this week after a letter sent on March 1 to Afghanistan’s interim leader Hamid Karzai went unanswered.
‘‘There is a deep reluctance to look into something that could be politically explosive,’’ Dr Leaning said.
She said forensic experts with the organisation had examined the grave sited in a remote desert region.
‘‘We saw the two sites ... with clear marks of trucks, mounds of disturbed earth and as you walked across it there were bones scattered on the surface, prayer caps, beads, men’s shoes, trousers and as you moved the bones around some had flesh on them, some were clean and there were skulls as well,’’ she said.
While it’s not certain who is buried in the mass grave, Dr Leaning said there is evidence to indicate it could well be Taliban soldiers. When northern Kunduz and Taloqan collapsed, as many as 5,000 Taliban fighting there later surrendered. But only 3,000 have been accounted for, she said.
Witnesses said they saw Northern Alliance soldiers, their noses and mouths covered against the stench, dumping entire railway containers into the area in late December and early January. Dr Leaning said the stench was still noticeable when she was there in January.
Northern Afghanistan has one of the worst histories of mass killings in 23 years of invasion and civil war.
The UN investigated a report of as many as 2,000 Taliban massacred in 1997, finding evidence of mass graves.
A year later, the Taliban were accused of massacring minority Shiite Muslims when the religious militia retook the city.
