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| Afghan President Hamid Karzai |
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AFGHANISTAN: SEVENTEEN VILLAGERS BEHEADED
August 26, 2012: Taliban insurgents beheaded 17 Afghans in a rebel-controlled area of southern Afghanistan.
The Afghans, two of them women, were killed in the Kajaki area of Helmand province, where they were attending a party that featured music and mixedgender dancing, provincial officials said.
The radical Islamist Taliban movement, which enforced an extreme version of Islamic law during its 1996-2001 rule, prohibits such behavior.
President Hamid Karzai issued a statement condemning the “mass killing,” which he blamed on the Taliban, and ordering an investigation.
A Taliban spokesman denied that the group was involved and said local commanders in the area knew nothing about the killings, news agencies reported.
Neyamatullah Khan, chief of the Musa Qala district where U.S. Marines have long battled Taliban insurgents, said the Taliban slaughtered the partygoers as punishment for the celebration.
Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial government, said that all of the victims were beheaded but that it was not clear whether they had been shot first. (Sources: washingtonpost.com, 27/08/2012)
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