Fundamentalists take over

By 1996, the Taliban, translated in Arabic to mean "the students," managed to seize control of most of Afghanistan. Five years ago, the Taliban offered to provide a haven for bin Laden, who by then had been exiled from his homeland, Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden, who has been implicated in terrorist attacks against U.S. interests worldwide, reportedly gave the organization $3 million to boost its flagging military efforts. 

Today the Taliban controls nearly 90% of Afghanistan, still harbors bin Laden as "a guest" and is the primary focus of a global appeal by the United States for a full-scale war against terrorism. 

The religion of Islam requires us to cherish women. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) loved women and was always kind to them and uplifted their status to be the equals of men. I am an American Muslim man who is religiously observant and believes in the Shari‘ah, but I am deeply outraged at the Taliban regime and their obscene mistreatment of women. What they are doing is completely against Islamic principles and has no basis in the Shari‘ah. It is sickening that this coarse, crude parody of Islam thinks it can pass itself off as the real thing. The truth is that from the very beginning Islam established women's rights which were eroded later. Islamic feminists have been rightly questioning what went wrong with the status of women after the first generation of Muslims, and trying to restore the rights that Muslim women originally had. The Taliban are nothing but a disgusting disgrace to Muslims everywhere. We just hope it's understood that they are violating the true Islamic principles. It's not enough that Western human rights organizations are trying to do something to help the miserable condition of Afghan women; it's more important that the world's Muslims speak out and work for change there. I am trying to get the word out to all the Muslims I know.

UNITED NATIONS: A UN report on Thursday gave grisly details of alleged Taliban massacres carried out in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif that may have left up to 8,000 people dead.

The report by UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights on Afghanistan Choong-Hyun Paik provided the most detailed account so far of an August 'killing frenzy' by the students militia directed mainly against the Hazara Shia minority.

The rapporteur based his report to the UN General Assembly on reliable witness accounts. He did not visit the site of the killings because of the security situation. The Taleban, in a response published with the report, denounced the findings as baseless.

Paik also confirmed that 10 Iranian diplomats and an Iranian journalist were killed on the first day of the Taleban capture of the opposition stronghold on August 8. Their bodies, which have since been repatriated, remained in the Iranian consulate for two days before being buried in a mass grave at a girls' high school.

The Taleban allegedly targeted districts inhabited by the Hazara, who had fought against the students militia in May 1997 during their earlier attempt to capture the city. At that time, the opposition forces had carried out gruesome massacres of Taleban forces, according to witness accounts.

The report said that on August 8 and 9, some of the persons who were killed were shot three times, and then had their throats slit. One Hazara man who tried to flee was killed by the Taleban with a bayonet driven through his head, face and eyes, the report said.

"All killings were seen as systematic, planned, and very well organised," the report said. According to the report, approximately 3,000 Hazaras were summarily executed in their homes or in the street in the first six days after the Taleban takeover. The estimated total number of killings so far ranges between 5,000 and 8,000, the report said.

Paik suggested that Pakistanis were involved in the massacres. He said that many Hazara prisoners were taken to the town of Shebergan in metal containers that were left in the sunshine during the day, and moved at dusk. He said: "Most persons thus exposed inside containers suffocated." He said that each container was filled with 110 to 130 prisoners. "Mass killings took place during the first two weeks after the takeover of Mazar-i-Sharif by the Taleban," Paik, of South Korea, affirmed.

The loudspeakers at mosques in the city were used to call on surviving Hazaras to convert to Sunnis, and to attend prayers five times a day unless they wanted to be treated like dogs and shot on the spot. Paik also said that the Taleban prevented the inhabitants from leaving the city, after some 10,000 to 12,000 people fled on the first day of the Taleban occupation.

In one case, a column of people fleeing had reached the desert, where "they were bombed by a Taleban fighter jet, fired on by multiple rocket launchers from within the city, and chased by fast pickup vehicles," the report said. "The road was so packed with cars and people that vehicles drove over the bodies of persons killed during the bombing raids. After that, no movement outside the city was possible during two weeks."

Paik also mentioned alleged Taleban massacres of villagers in the Ghorband Valley. "The pattern of the killings observed showed that men, women and male children were shot, while baby girls were kicked or beaten to death." Paik said that he was "'horrified' by latest reports from Afghanistan, which "indicate a worsening pattern of grave Human Rights violations." "Those found responsible for the grave Human Rights violations committed in 1997 and 1998 should be brought to justice in keeping with international standards of a fair trial," he concluded.