KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Sources have reported the killings of two former members of Afghanistan’s security forces in separate incidents in Parwan and Daikundi provinces, raising renewed concerns about the safety of former military personnel under Taliban rule.
One of the victims was Hashmatullah Hesari, a former military officer from Parwan Province, whose body was found at Kapisa Hospital four days after he was reportedly detained by the Taliban.
Hesari was originally from Abadkhil village in Jabal al-Siraj district of Parwan Province. According to sources, during the former republic, he served as a company commander in one of the army battalions of the Silab Corps.
A relative of Hesari said that he had been arrested by Taliban intelligence forces from his home last week. According to the source, this was the eighth time that Hesari had been detained.
According to the source, Hesari’s body was found on Friday at the state hospital in Kapisa. The Taliban had initially declared the body unidentified and claimed that it had been recovered from the Panjshir River in the Sayad area.
However, sources later confirmed that the body belonged to Hashmatullah Hesari.
Sources said that severe signs of torture were visible on Hesari’s body. His eyes had been gouged out, his throat had been strangled with a rope, and he was ultimately killed by gunfire.
Residents of Abadkhil village in Jabal al-Siraj district of Parwan buried the mutilated body of Hashmatullah Hesari on Friday.
The Taliban authorities in Parwan have not yet commented on the killing of the former military officer.
In a separate incident, a former military officer was shot dead in Daikundi Province on Friday evening.
A source in Daikundi told KabulNow that the former soldier, Yaser Hosseini, was shot dead by two armed individuals in Alqan Bazaar, the center of Shahristan district, on Friday evening (20 June).
According to the source, Hosseini had served in the army of the former government and, following the collapse of the republic, operated a bakery and a shop in Alqan Bazaar. He was shot with a pistol while closing his shop on Friday evening.
Another source said that Hosseini was a graduate of a military academy. According to the source, after the fall of the republic, he had traveled to Tajikistan for labor work, but later returned to Afghanistan and was engaged in shopkeeping.
According to the source, Yaser Hosseini was the son-in-law of Shirin Mohseni, a former representative of Daikundi in the House of Representatives. Arif Dawari, the husband of Shirin Mohseni, is currently serving as a Taliban district governor in Nawmesh district of Daikundi.
The motive behind the killing of the former military officer remains unclear.
Over the past five years, a large number of former military personnel have been killed under mysterious circumstances. Taliban members have been accused of involvement in many of these killings, but the group maintains that it remains committed to the general amnesty declared by its supreme leader.
The killing of former members of Afghanistan’s security forces has remained a major human rights concern since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
Despite the Taliban’s repeated assurances that former government employees and security personnel would be protected under a general amnesty, human rights organizations and United Nations reports have documented cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial killings of former military and government personnel across different parts of the country.
