Afghan Taliban use firing squad to kill young woman, man for eloping
By The Associated Press
Originally published by www.nydailynews.com, April 14, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - Young love was met with death.
A Taliban firing squad killed a couple for trying to elope, shooting them with AK-47s in front of a crowd in a militant-controlled region, officials said Tuesday.
The woman, 19-year-old Gul Pecha, and the man, 21-year-old Abdul Aziz, were accused of immoral acts, and a council of conservative clerics decided that the two should be killed, officials in Afghanistan said.
The two had hoped to travel to Iran, which borders their home province of Nimroz, but their parents sent villagers to bring them home, said Sadiq Chakhansori, the chief of the provincial council. Once they were back home in the remote district of Khash Rod, riflemen shot them Monday.
"Unfortunately, Khash Rod is an area that is almost out of the control of the government," said Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad. "We don't have coalition or Afghan Army forces there like we do in other districts."
The U.S. has 38,000 forces in Afghanistan, and President Obama plans to send 21,000 more troops this summer. But in remote and dangerous regions of Afghanistan, Taliban fighters operate what are sometimes referred to as shadow governments, where militant leaders run their own police units and pseudo-court systems.
The conservative Taliban movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and put in place harsh social rules that forbade unmarried men and women from talking or meeting in public. Women were not allowed out of their homes without a male relative, and girls couldn't go to school.
Taliban fighters have widened their influence the past three years and now control many remote districts.
© Copyright 2009 Daily News, L.P.
| ||||
