U.N. Finds Signs of Mass Killings in Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hundreds of bodies dumped in wells and shallow graves in northern Afghanistan indicate mass killings by both sides in the nation’s war, U.N. investigators said Saturday.
The investigators are looking into claims by Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum that as many as 2,000 soldiers from the ruling Taliban militia were massacred during a failed campaign in May.
Dostum’s anti-Taliban alliance is fighting the religious militia, which has imposed its strict version of Islam over 85% of the country. But he blamed a former deputy now living in exile in Iran, Malik Pahlawan, for the slaughter.
U.N. officials said mass killings appeared to be ethnically motivated.
“It appears that everybody was butchering everybody up there,” one U.N. official said.
Investigators said the death toll could be as high as 4,000.
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