Camelia Entekhabifard
Editor-in-chief of the Independent Persian.
TT

Who Is Slaughtering the Hazaras of Afghanistan?

The terrorist Haqqani group, a terrorist wing of the Taliban, has been responsible for the bloodiest suicide attacks on the people of Afghanistan and the foreign forces stationed in this country during the past two decades.

When the United States gave up Afghanistan to Taliban, Haqqanis entered the government and Sirajuddin Haqqani, a terrorist fugitive wanted by the FBI, was put in charge of the interior ministry. This is a man for whom a 10 million dollar reward had been set.

Taliban came to power last summer. In the months since, despite what the US and international organizations claimed, calm and security have not been restored in Afghanistan.

Those who worked for the previous Afghan government are being murdered and massacred. Targeted bombings come one after the other. The US-Taliban agreement has meant only death, hunger and displacement for the Afghan nation. Popular resistance continues in Panjshir, Andarab, Mazar Sharif, Khost and Kabul. But so does the repression by Taliban. But massacring the Hazaras of Afghanistan in a targeted suicide operation can be part of the strategy by Taliban to gain the attention of the international community.

Eight months since it came to power, this hated government has not gained recognition by international community. The only weapon it has is to vicitimize itself, exaggerate the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan and use the name of ISIS to create terror amongst the Westerners.

Taliban has now created an imaginary group (which, in reality, consists of suicide bombers trained by themselves) which it introduces as ISIS so as to not take responsibility for murdering of innocent people.

Meanwhile, during a trip to Turkey, Taliban’s foreign minister claimed that ISIS’s reach was exaggerated and the terrorist group had no base in Afghanistan.

The suicide bombers are a death brigade for Sirajuddin Haqqani. This is why, last fall, he went to see the family of suicide bombers (martyrs, as Taliban calls them) in Kabul’s Hotel Intercontinental. He praised the families of 1,500 suicide bombers in Afghanistan and dedicated a monthly salary for them. For the first time, Haqqani openly admitted to Taliban running suicide bombers and called them “heroes of the homeland.”

Haqqani was meeting these families in the very hotel that, in 1996, was the site of an attack by five armed militants. Following hours of clashes, 22 were killed and more than 40 wounded.

“The attack on Hotel Intercontinental Kabul was led by Prophet Mohammad and he has issued a visa to paradise for the martyrs,” Haqqani says in a recently released voice audio recording, without the time or place of its recording being clear.

Such words are considered heresy by the world’s Muslim population; but for those who are brainwashed and trained for decades for suicide operations, the word of Haqqani, who is a religious cult leader, counts for something.

Last month, the leader of the Haqqanis, for the first time, openly, and without hiding his face, attended the graduation ceremony of a police academy in Kabul. Speaking to the graduates, he said: “To win your confidence, I will appear by you, openly, in media.” He went on to make mistakes in his recitation of the Holy Quran. A man who has used the name of religion to train death platoons for years, and to massacre the people of Afghanistan, started reciting a verse from the Al Imran chapter of the Quran but failed to finish the verse.

The number of suicide bombers trained by Taliban and Haqqanis is not clear. But based on the videos recently published of the suicide groups of Alfateh al-Mosakkar (linked to Kandahar-based Taliban) and the Al-Mansouri in the north (linked to the interior ministry or Sirajuddin Haqqani), it can be estimated that Taliban boasts 2,000 to 3,000 brainwashed soldiers in its suicide or so-called martyrdom units.

Recent suicide attacks on Hazara schools and mosques in Afghanistan, from Kabul to Kunduz and Mazar Sharif, are similar to the suicide attacks that had taken place in this country in the last 20 years.

Targeted killing of Hazaras can be a Taliban strategy to gain the attention of international community by fake-creating an ISIS. Taliban uses massacres to claim ISIS as an international and regional threat that also disrupts order and security in Afghanistan. Taliban hopes that with repeated killings of innocent Hazaras in mosques and schools it can gain recognition and aid from the West.

The country Joe Biden gave to Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mulla Baradar now threatens all its neighbors, including Pakistan and Uzbekistan, with US-made weapons left behind by the US military.

The worst oppression and medieval tortures is being committed against the people of Afghanistan, including Hazaras, Tajiks Uzbeks, Hindus and Ismailis. The world is blind to the crimes of this primitive group, which has descended upon the country from its cave bases.

Taliban’s new policy, using the name of ISIS for suicide bombers, aims to establish its sovereignty, built on the blood and suffering of the people of Afghanistan.

In a joint project with human rights groups, the New York Times reported on the killing or disappearance of 500 former government employees by Taliban. The shocking torture of Colonel Qassem Qaem and the brutal killing of this young man; disappearance of Alie Azizi, the former head of Herat’s women prison; mass graves for Panjshiris; beating up women and girls; torture and arrest of protesting journalists and citizens; these are just some of the news that speak of a grand crime against the people of this country.

The main responsibility for these crimes is on the shoulder of those who, for 20 years, spoke of democracy and defending human rights, but ended up giving the country to terrorists. The massacring of Afghanistan’s Hazras is part of this criminal policy of oppression by Taliban against the wronged and honorable people of Afghanistan.