Amnesty says 6 from minority Shiite family killed by Taliban

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A leading international rights group released a harrowing report Friday about six members of an extended minority Shiite family in Afghanistan who were brutally killed by the Taliban earlier this summer. It accused Afghanistan's new rulers of blatant disregard of human rights and abuse of minorities.

Amnesty International said the slain Hazaras included a 12-year-old child in what the rights group said was a deliberate attack on the ethnic minority. The killings took place in Ghor province on June 26 and represent evidence of how the Taliban have failed to establish an inclusive government since seizing power just over a year ago, Amnesty said.

The Taliban swept into Kabul, the Afghan capital, and captured most of the rest of the country in a blitz in August 2021, as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their exit from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. The country's Western-backed government and military crumbled in the face of the Taliban assault.

According to Amnesty, on the night of June 26, Taliban forces raided the home of Mohamad Muradi, a Hazara and a former security official in Ghor. Muradi had also led a local militia that fought the Taliban in 2020 and 2021.

After the Taliban takeover, Muradi had attempted to escape to Iran but failed and recently returned home to the Lal-wa Sarjangal district in Ghor, where he was in hiding.

Amnesty's report cited witnesses as saying that the Taliban attack began at night, with rocket-propelled grenades thrown at Muradi’s home that instantly killed his 22-year-old daughter, Taj Gul Muradi. Muradi himself, and two other children, a son and a daughter, 12, were initially wounded. The girl died of her wounds the following day, Amnesty said.

A wounded Muradi surrendered to the Taliban through...