Taliban and IS fighters killed around 50 men, women and children in Mirzawalang on Saturday after overrunning a government-backed militia in a 48-hour battle.<\/p>\n
The Taliban released 235 hostages from a remote village in northern Afghanistan where it allegedly massacred around 50 civilians along with Islamic State insurgents but others were still feared held, officials said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis evening 235 people including women and children were released from Mirzawalang as a result of mediation by the local elders and provincial officials,\u201d Zabihullah Amani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have been safely evacuated to Sar-e Pul city, but there are still an unknown number of people being kept hostage there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
An Afghan security source said he thought there were still around 100 people being held hostage in Mirzawalang, situated in the Sayad district of Sar-e Pul province, after insurgents captured it at the weekend.<\/p>\n
Taliban and IS fighters killed around 50 men, women and children in the mainly Shiite village on Saturday after overrunning a government-backed militia in a 48-hour battle, according to local officials, who also said they took a number of residents captive.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the efforts of elders the bodies of the victims have not been recovered,\u201d Mohammad Zaher Wahdat, the provincial governor, told Tolo News, an Afghanistan television news channel.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo hundred and thirty-five hostages have been released. They are so shocked they can\u2019t even speak to tell us about anymore other hostages,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Amani, the provincial spokesman, has said that dozens of Taliban and IS group fighters, under the command of a local Taliban commander who he claimed pledged allegiance to IS, launched a co-ordinated attack on the area on Thursday.<\/p>\n
They defeated the Afghan Local Police (ALP) after a 48-hour battle before massacring civilians, he claimed. The majority of those killed were Shiites. Most were shot or beheaded, he said.<\/p>\n
Special forces<\/p>\n
Afghan defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri told AFP that 34 civilians were known to have been killed.<\/p>\n
The discrepancy highlights the difficulty of verifying information from poor, mountainous areas of Afghanistan made inaccessible by fighting and with patchy communications. AFP was not able to access the village.<\/p>\n
Before confirmation of the release of hostages Amani said that 150 families were being held while Waziri said \u201can unknown number of people\u201d had been taken hostage.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the villages is cut off, we can\u2019t confirm any new killings by the terrorists,\u201d Amani told AFP.<\/p>\n
The Taliban confirmed capturing Mirzawalang but said it did so alone. It has also denied allegations it had killed civilians.<\/p>\n
Taliban and IS fighters have regularly clashed in Afghanistan over the past two years but security sources say they have teamed up in the past to strike Afghan forces in certain areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommando forces have been deployed to the area, air strikes are being carried out as we speak, and commanders on the ground are busy planning the recapture of the valley,\u201d said Waziri, the defence spokesman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe operation to retake the valley will happen soon, and the terrorists will pay for their crimes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Sediq Sediqi, a spokesman for the Afghan government, told AFP it was difficult to know numbers of civilians concerned but said \u201cPresident Ashraf Ghani has instructed everyone to do everything to safeguard those people\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taliban and IS fighters killed around 50 men, women and children in Mirzawalang on Saturday after overrunning a government-backed militia in a 48-hour battle. The Taliban released 235 hostages from a remote village in northern Afghanistan where it allegedly massacred around 50 civilians along with Islamic State insurgents but others were still feared held, officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}