Did Taliban behead 17 people for dancing? Maybe not.

Initial reports said 17 people were beheaded by the Taliban for dancing and singing. Taliban leaders fighting over two women triggered the killings, says a provincial official.

|
REUTERS/Omar Sobhani
Members from the "District Unknown" heavy metal band walk with their musical instruments outside a classroom in Kabul in June. Kabul's rock music school, which opened in May, reflects the return, although sometimes tentative, of social and individual freedoms since the end of the Taliban rule in 2001.

 Insurgents attacked a large party in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan and beheaded 17 people, officials said on Monday.

The head of the local government initially said the victims were civilians at a celebration late Sunday involving music and dancing in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province. The official, Neyamatullah Khan, said the Taliban killed the party-goers for flouting the extreme brand of Islam embraced by the militants.

But a provincial government official said later that those killed were caught up in a fight between two Taliban commanders over two women, who were among the dead. Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said shooting broke out during the fight. He said it was unclear whether the music and dancing triggered the violence and whether the dead were all civilians or possibly included some fighters.

RECOMMENDED: How well do you know Afghanistan? Take the quiz

Ahmadi said all of the bodies were decapitated but it was not clear if they had been shot first.

In other violence, two American soldiers were shot and killed by one of their Afghan colleagues in the east, military officials said. Afghan officials said the killings appeared to be accidental, however NATO would not comment on the question of whether the killings were intentional or accidental.

The Taliban has controlled large parts of the district of Musa Qala, an area encompassing more than 100 villages, since 2001. They enforce the same strict interpretation of Islamic law that was imposed on all of Afghanistan during Taliban rule of Afghanistan from 1996-2001.

U.S. Marines have battled the Taliban for years in Musa Qala, but the insurgent group still wields in significant power in the area as international forces across the country draw down and hand over control to Afghan forces. Helmand province, where Musa Qala is located, is one of the areas seeing the largest reduction in U.S. troops. The U.S. started reducing forces from a peak of nearly 103,000 last year, and plans to have 68,000 troops by October.

Many Afghans and international observers have expressed concerns that the Taliban will try to re-impose strict Islamic justice as international forces withdraw. Under the Taliban, all music and film was banned as un-Islamic, and women were barred from leaving their homes without a male family member as an escort.

The Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan could not be reached for comment on the beheadings.

But a Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf, who denied the group was involved. "I spoke to our commanders in those villages, but they know nothing of the event," he told Reuters.

In June, Taliban fighters stomed a lakeside hotel near Kabul demanding to know where the "prostitutes and pimps" were during a party, witnesses said. Twenty people were killed.

As the NATO drawdown progresses, there has been a surge in attacks by Afghan forces against their international allies.

A group of U.S. and Afghan soldiers came under an insurgent attack in Laghman province on Monday, said Noman Hatefi, a spokesman for the Afghan army corps in eastern Afghanistan. He said the troops returned fire and ran to take up fighting positions.

He claimed the two Americans were killed when an Afghan soldier fell and accidentally discharged his weapon.

"He didn't do this intentionally. But then the commander of the (Afghan) unit started shouting at him" 'What did you do? You killed two NATO soldiers!' And so he threw down his weapon and started to run," Hatefi said.

The American troops had already called in air support to help with the insurgent attack and the aircraft fired on the escaping soldier from above, killing him, Hatefi said.

NATO spokesman Lt. Col. Hagen Messer of Germany confirmed that two international soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier in Laghman province, but would not comment on whether the killing was intentional or accidental.

Insider attacks have been a problem for the U.S.-led military coalition for years, but it has exploded recently into a crisis. There have been at least 33 such attacks so far this year, killing 42 coalition members, mostly Americans. Last year there were 21 attacks, killing 35; and in 2010 there were 11 attacks with 20 deaths. The latest killings brought the number of Americans killed by allied forces this month to 12.

The chief spokesman for NATO forces in the country said coalition forces were not pulling back from collaborating with the Afghans because of the attacks.

"We are not going to reduce the close relationship with our Afghan partners," Brig. Gen. Gunter Katz told reporters in the capital.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that he could not confirm any link between the attacker in Monday's shooting and the insurgency. In previous insider attacks, the Taliban have quickly claimed responsibility and named the assailants.

Helmand officials also reported that 10 Afghan soldiers were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in the south, and five were either kidnapped or joined their assailants. Ahmadi, the provincial spokesman, said insurgents attacked the checkpoint in Washir district Sunday evening. Four soldiers were wounded he said. The Afghan Defense Ministry said the checkpoint was attacked by more than 100 insurgents.

Ahmadi said the five missing soldiers left with the insurgents but it was unclear if they were kidnapped or went voluntarily.

____

Khan reported from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez contributed to this report in Kabul.

RECOMMENDED: How well do you know Afghanistan? Take the quiz

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Did Taliban behead 17 people for dancing? Maybe not.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0827/Did-Taliban-behead-17-people-for-dancing-Maybe-not
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe