KABUL — A
rebel
Taliban commander from Afghanistan’s minority Shiite Hazara community was
killed while attempting to flee to Iran, the defense ministry said Wednesday,
denying local reports suggesting he was murdered in captivity.
اضافة اعلان
Mahdi Mujahid’s
split with the Taliban leadership in June is the highest-profile public
division seen in the hardline Islamist group since they returned to power in
August last year.
He was appointed
intelligence chief of Bamiyan province at the time, but months later was sacked
following a dispute local media attributed to control of the lucrative coal
trade.
Mujahid went on the
run in June after the Taliban sent thousands of troops to crush his loyalists.
Days of fighting
raged, with the UN estimating at least 27,000 people were displaced by the
violence.
Afghanistan’s
mostly Shiite ethnic Hazaras have faced persecution for decades, and Mujahid’s
appointment was initially seen as supporting the Taliban’s claim of being more
inclusive to non-Pashtuns.
On Wednesday,
officials said border forces identified Mujahid in Herat province, near the
frontier with Iran, and “punished him for his deeds”.
“He didn’t have
anyone with him,” provincial information officer Naeemul Haq Haqqani told AFP,
adding he was “killed after a conflict”.
Pictures
circulating on social media, however, purported to show Mujahid alive and in
custody. Haqqani dismissed those reports.
“Rumors that this
person was captured alive are lies,” he said.
The Taliban were
accused of abuses against the Hazaras when they first ruled Afghanistan from
1996 to 2001.
The Hazaras are
also the target of attacks by
Daesh, which considers them heretics.
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