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Shots break out. At least a dozen men are seen slaughtered amid cries of “Allahu Akhbar” – God is Great.
The victims were members of an Afghan special forces unit: their executioners, the Taliban. The summary killings took place on June 16 in the town of Dawlat Abad, in the province of Faryab, near the Afghan border with Turkmenistan.
CNN obtained and verified several videos of the incident and spoke to witnesses.
Videos show the bodies of commandos scattered around an open-air market. After a fierce battle to hold the city, the commandos ran out of ammunition and were surrounded by Taliban fighters, witnesses said.
In one video, about 45 seconds long, a passerby can be heard saying in Pashto, the local language, “Don’t shoot them, don’t shoot them, please, don’t shoot them.” The spectator then asks: “How do the Pashtuns kill Afghans?” The Pashtuns are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan.
At the end of the video, another voice off camera says, “Take it all away. ”
In another video, a man can be heard saying, “Open his bulletproof vest.” A fighter can be seen removing equipment from the body of one of the commandos.
The Red Cross confirmed that the bodies of 22 commandos had been recovered.
The killing of the soldiers stands in stark contrast to the Taliban’s efforts to show that they accept the soldiers’ surrender and, in some cases, pay them to return home as they achieve territorial gains across Afghanistan.
The Taliban posted a video three days after the fighting in Dawlat Abad, showing the seizure of military trucks and weapons. The video claimed that “Washington Guards, a specially trained CIA special commando that pursued the Taliban in Dawlat Abad, Faryab, were captured alive by the Taliban, disarmed and handcuffed.”
The Taliban told CNN that the videos showing the slaughtered commandos were fake and that government propaganda encouraged people not to surrender. A Taliban spokesman said they still held 24 commandos that were captured in Faryab province but provided no evidence.
The Afghan Defense Ministry denied that the Taliban were holding the commandos and told CNN they were killed.
They shot them all
According to several witnesses interviewed by CNN in Dawlat Abad, the commandos were shot in cold blood.
One man said the commandos arrived in town with several tanks but ran out of ammunition after two hours of fighting and received no air support.
“The commandos were surrounded by the Taliban. Then they took them to the middle of the street and shot them all,” said the witness.
He also suggested that some Taliban fighters were not from the area and may have been foreigners because he couldn’t understand what they were saying when talking to each other.
A second witness – a shopkeeper from the bazaar where the shooting took place – agreed that some of the Taliban looked foreign. He said the commandos “weren’t fighting. They all raised their hands and surrendered, and (the Taliban) were just shooting.”
Another trader corroborated this account: “I was so scared when the Taliban started shooting at the commandos. Everyone was afraid that day. I was hiding in my shop.
He said he saw the shooting unfold through a small hole in the wall.
Local authorities criticized sending elite commandos into the city without reinforcements or air cover.
Abdul Ahad Ailbek, a member of the Faryab Provincial Council, said the incoming force did not know the area or the districts controlled by the Taliban.
Taliban claim defections
Across Afghanistan, tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced amid an upsurge in fighting following US President Joe Biden’s announcement that all US troops will be withdrawn from the country by September 11 .
Since then, the Taliban say they have taken control of nearly 200 districts across Afghanistan, mostly in the north and northwest. In many areas, they encountered little resistance.
In a statement released on Monday, the Taliban said “thousands of soldiers” had “defected and embraced the open arms of the Islamic Emirate,” which they claim is the true leadership of the Afghan people.
“Nearly two hundred neighborhoods have been cleaned of their malicious presence,” the statement added.
In their statement, the Taliban claimed that “fake videos and several years old video footage showing ISIS activities [ISIS] the militias are also presented as recent actions by the mujahedin in the Islamic Emirate. ”
The Afghan special forces, trained by the United States and better equipped than regular units, number 11,000. But they are stretched as the Taliban intensify their attacks across the country.
Now without American air support or intelligence gathering, their mission is even more difficult.
The Afghan forces are suffering heavy losses. CNN obtained another video showing the bodies of commandos killed by the Taliban in another part of Faryab province last week.
The Red Cross confirmed to have recovered more than a dozen bodies there.
“There will be no recovery”
One of those killed at Dawlat Abad was 32-year-old commando Sohrab Azimi, who spent two years at a military school in the United States and was due to marry his American fiancee next month.
His father – a retired general – told CNN that Azimi was responsible for the call for air support. He did – but it never happened.
“Anyone would be angry if this happened to their son. Why did they not support the operation and why did someone tell the Taliban they were coming? asked General Hazir Azimi.
“Afghanistan has lost someone who was educated, who was the future – I am so sad for his loss.”
General Azimi had nothing but contempt for the Taliban. “They do not even respect the corpses and the soldiers who have surrendered,” he said.
Provincial Council member Abdul Ahad Ailbek said “the Taliban are the old Taliban. They haven’t changed. Unfortunately, they do not have the freedom for the people.
Afghan National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib has sought to reassure Afghans that the country will not fall into the hands of the Taliban.
“There will be no Taliban takeover,” Mohib said on Monday. “The Afghan people are determined to stand up for our country, our people and our values.
Asked about the Dawlat Abad attack, Mohib said many of the recent defeats of the Afghan national security forces were the result of a lack of air support.
“The reality is that these were largely surrounded areas that could not be defended, they had to be supplied by air, and these soldiers ran out of ammunition,” Mohib said.
“There has been a vacuum created as a result of the demotion, but we are trying to fill that gap.”
Miller has repeatedly expressed concern about the pace of the Taliban’s territorial gains.
He says political agreement cannot be reached amid escalating violence.
“I am one of the officers in the US military who has had the opportunity to speak with the Taliban,” Miller said. “And I told them (…) that it is important for the military to establish the conditions for a peaceful and political settlement in Afghanistan.
However, civilians in Dawlat Abad who spoke to CNN appeared to be suspicious of the Taliban and their intentions once the foreigners left.
Several told CNN that the Taliban quickly introduced new rules after taking control of the region. Girls can no longer go to school and women can only go to the market with a man.
A witness to the commando shooting said: “The Taliban said if foreigners left Afghanistan, they would make peace. How long will they continue to kill brothers in our country?
Another witness to the attack said that many people had left the city. He said he had a message for the Taliban.
“We are one Islam, we are one brother. Why are you killing your brothers? Come sit with us and talk about it.”
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