2015 Zabul massacre | |
---|---|
Location | Zabul Province, Afghanistan |
Date | 9 November 2015 |
Deaths | 7 |
Perpetrators | Islamic State |
The 2015 Zabul massacre refers to the killing of seven Afghan Shia Hazaras on 9 November 2015 in the southern Afghan province of Zabul. [1] [2]
Fighters claiming allegiance to the Islamic State took seven members of the Hazara ethnic group hostage in October 2015 in Ghazni and held them in Arghandab District, Zabul Province. The hostages included four men, two women, and a nine-year-old girl, Shukria Tabassum. [1] The hostages were moved 56 times to avoid their rescue by Afghan military forces. [3] Two hundred Taliban fighters were involved in battles with the Islamic State group and another insurgent group. [4]
The hostages were executed on 9 November 2015 by the Islamic State group [1] [2] Several Western media sources described the execution as a beheading. Martine van Bijlert stated that this was most likely a mistranslation (Dari : حلال کردن, halal kardan), and that the victims' throats had been slit, most likely with kite wire sharpened with glass for kite fighting. [5]
The victims were later found by the Taliban. Local elders helped arrange for the bodies to be transferred to a hospital in territory controlled by the Afghan government. [4]
Nicholas Haysom, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, stated that the killings could constitute war crimes. UNAMA commented that the hostage-taking and murder of civilians are serious violations of humanitarian law. [6]
The grassroots Tabassum movement started on 11 November 2015, when about two [3] to twenty [7] thousand mourners carried the coffins containing the seven bodies to the presidential palace in Kabul, protesting against the lack of security provided by government forces. [3]
The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is an Afghan political and militant movement with an ideology comprising elements of Pashtun nationalism and the Deobandi movement of Islamic fundamentalism. It ruled approximately 75% of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, before it was overthrown by an American invasion after the September 11th attacks carried out by the Taliban's ally al-Qaeda. The Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021 following the departure of coalition forces, after 20 years of Taliban insurgency, and now controls the entire country. The Taliban government is not recognized by any country and has been internationally condemned for restricting human rights, including women's rights to work and have an education.
The Taliban insurgency began after the group's fall from power during the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces fought against the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, and later by President Ashraf Ghani, and against a US-led coalition of forces that has included all members of NATO; the 2021 Taliban offensive resulted in the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani. The private sector in Pakistan extends financial aid to the Taliban, contributing to their financial sustenance.
Dadullah was the Taliban's most senior militant commander in Afghanistan until his death in 2007. He was also known as Maulavi or Mullah Dadullah Akhund. He also earned the nickname of Lang, meaning "lame", because of a leg he lost during fighting.
The Hazaras have long been the subjects of persecution in Afghanistan. The Hazaras are mostly from Afghanistan, primarily from the central regions of Afghanistan, known as Hazarajat. Significant communities of Hazara people also live in Quetta, Pakistan and in Mashad, Iran, as part of the Hazara and Afghan diasporas.
Shukria Tabassum was a Hazara victim killed in the 2015 Zabul massacre in Zabul, Afghanistan. The Tabassum movement was named after her.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Afghanistan.
On 23 July 2016, a twin bombing occurred in the vicinity of Deh Mazang square in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, when Enlightenment Movement protesters, mostly from the Hazara ethnic group, were marching against a decision to bypass their region in the development of the TUTAP mega power project. At least 97 people were killed and 260 injured. The terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility, however the same group later on refused it. Some Hazara protestors allege that Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was behind the attack. They believe that Ashraf Ghani government was abetting the terrorists who were responsible for the attack. They also allege that the government officials were preventing the wounded from being shifted to the hospital.
On 31 May 2017, a truck bomb exploded in a crowded intersection in Kabul, Afghanistan, near the German embassy at about 08:25 local time during rush hour, killing over 150 and injuring 413, mostly civilians, and damaging several buildings in the embassy. The attack was the deadliest terror attack to take place in Kabul. The diplomatic quarter—in which the attack took place—is one of the most heavily fortified areas in the city, with three-meter-high (10 ft) blast walls, and access requires passing through several checkpoints. The explosion created a crater about 4.5 meters (15 ft) wide and 30 feet deep. Afghanistan's intelligence agency NDS claimed that the blast was planned by the Haqqani Network. Although no group has claimed responsibility, the Afghan Taliban are also a suspect but they have denied involvement and condemned the attack. It was the single largest attack on the city up till that point.
Peace processes have taken place during several phases of the Afghanistan conflict, which has lasted since the 1978 Saur Revolution.
The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing insurgency by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-KP) against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The conflict initially began when both operated as rival insurgent groups in Nangarhar; since the formation of the Taliban's state in 2021, IS-KP members have enacted a campaign of terrorism targeting both civilians and assassinating Taliban members using hit-and-run tactics. The group have also caused incidents and attacks across the border in Pakistan.
Events in the year 2020 in Afghanistan.
The People's Peace Movement or Helmand Peace Convoy is a nonviolent resistance grassroots group in Afghanistan, created in March 2018 after a suicide car bomb attack on 19 March in Lashkargah, Helmand Province. The PPM calls for the military forces of both the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban to implement a ceasefire and advance the Afghan peace process. The group marched across Afghanistan to Kabul, where it met leaders of both parties and conducted sit-ins in front of diplomatic posts, before continuing its march to Balkh and Mazar-i-Sharif, arriving in September 2018.
The Tabassum movement was a grassroots protest movement in Afghanistan that held several protests in Kabul and other Afghan cities in mid-November 2015, following the execution by an armed opposition group of nine-year-old Shukria Tabassum and six other Hazaras around 9 November 2015. The protests were ethnically diverse, had strong participation and leadership by women, and the organisational structure avoided concentration of leadership.
The Enlightenment Movement or Junbesh-e Roshnayi is a grassroots civil disobedience movement of Hazaras created in 2016 in Afghanistan in response to the Afghan government's change in routing plans for proposed international electricity networking, which was perceived as continuing historical anti-Hazara discrimination. The group organised major protests in Afghanistan and internationally during 2016 and 2017, protesting against discrimination. The group's youthful leadership challenged traditional Hazara leaders for representativity of the community.
Uprising for Change is an Afghan civil disobedience movement that started with tent sit-ins in central Kabul in June 2017 in response to the 31 May 2017 Kabul bombing, the killing of protesters by Afghan security forces on 2 June, the 3 June suicide bombings at a funeral of one of the 2 June victims, and subsequent police violence. On 11 June 2017, the commander of the Kabul Garrison, Ahmadzai, and Kabul police chief Hassan Shah Frogh were suspended from duty following the protests. In March 2018, Uprising for Change called for the Afghan government to be replaced by a six-month interim government.
War crimes in Afghanistan covers the period of conflict from 1979 to the present. Starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, 40 years of civil war in various forms has wracked Afghanistan. War crimes have been committed by all sides.
The republican insurgency in Afghanistan is an ongoing low-level guerrilla war between the National Resistance Front and allied groups which fight under the banner of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on one side, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on the other side. On 17 August 2021, former first vice president of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh declared himself the "caretaker" president of Afghanistan and announced the resistance. On 26 August, a brief ceasefire was declared. On 1 September, talks broke down and fighting resumed as the Taliban attacked resistance positions.
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