Mass Grave Found South Of Kabul

Twenty-two male corpses were discovered in their mass grave 15 miles south of Kabul on Thursday by the president’s army. Residents blamed the killings on a rival Islamic militia recently driven from the area.

The dead were believed to be members of the Hazaras, an ethnic minority made up mostly of Shiite Muslims. The Hazaras are at the bottom of the social ladder in Afghanistan and have been often been singled out for attack by various factions in the brutal civil war.

On Thursday afternoon, men masked their faces while they exhumed the bodies for proper burial. Each corpse was removed and placed on the back of a truck.

Both the president’s troops and area residents blamed the killings on the Taliban, an opposition movement made up mostly of former Muslim theology students.

Mir Agha, who lived in a nearby village, said the killings “happened five days before the Taliban lost this area” to government forces on March 19.

The Taliban shot the men because the militia thought they were prison guards who had abused inmates, Mir Agha said.

The Taliban could not immediately be reached for comment.