KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Sami Sadat, a former commander of Afghanistan’s national army and the head of the United Front of Afghanistan, says the killings of 184 former security personnel have been documented over the past three months since the Taliban returned to power.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Sadat said: “In the past three months alone, we have documented more than 184 former soldiers killed, many subjected to horrific torture.”
He warned that former members of Afghanistan’s security forces who are deported from Iran and Türkiye face an even greater risk of being targeted upon their return to Afghanistan.
Sadat also said that those responsible for the killings, torture, and other abuses against former Afghan security personnel “must be held accountable under the law.”
The former military commander stated that “no regime can secure its future through fear and brutality.”
Accompanying his statement with photographs of former security personnel, Sadat addressed those who “still sympathize with the Taliban,” writing: “Look at these faces and ask yourself: what if this were your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your son, or your daughter?”
There are no comprehensive official figures on the number of former Afghan army, police, and intelligence personnel killed since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021. However, the United Nations and international human rights organizations have repeatedly reported allegations of reprisals, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture targeting former government officials and security personnel.
Meanwhile, reports of such killings continue to surface across Afghanistan. On July 20, a former member of the US-backed Khost Protection Force (KPF), identified as Nangyali, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Khost city shortly after returning from the United States, according to local sources.
Nangyali had served with the KPF (Khost Protection Force that worked closely with US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the two-decade US-led military mission in Afghanistan) under the former Afghan government. While the identity and motive of the attackers remain unclear, the incident has further fueled concerns over the security of former members of the country’s security forces, particularly those who return from abroad.
The Taliban maintain that they remain committed to the general amnesty announced by their supreme leader and deny involvement in the killing of former security personnel. Despite these assurances, reports of mysterious killings, arrests, and disappearances of former members of the Afghan security forces continue to emerge regularly from different parts of the country, raising persistent concerns among human rights groups about accountability and the safety of those associated with the former republic.
In his latest quarterly report to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General António Guterres said the United Nations recorded at least five killings, 20 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, and eight cases of torture or ill-treatment involving former Afghan security personnel between January and March 2026.
Human Rights Watch and other organizations have said many such incidents, particularly in rural areas, may go unreported because families fear retaliation.
