Taliban deny killing captured 22 Special Forces personnel

DAULATABAD: The Taliban Tuesday denied killing 24 Afghan Special Forces personnel who had surrendered in the Faryab province and said they were still in their captivity.

Talking to CNN after it posted videos showing the commandos being shot, a Taliban spokesman said these were fake and government propaganda to encourage people not to surrender. The spokesman said they were still holding 22 commandos, who had been captured in the Faryab province on June 16 close to Afghanistan's border with Turkmenistan.

The videos show the commandos' bodies strewn across an outdoor market. After a fierce battle to hold the town, the commandos ran out of ammunition and were surrounded by the Taliban fighters, witnesses said.

In one video, a bystander can be heard saying in Pashto, the local language: "Don't shoot them, don't shoot them, I beg you don't shoot them."

The bystander then asks: "How are you Pashtun killing Afghans?" The Pashtuns are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan.

At the end of the video, another voice off-camera says: "Take everything off them."

In another video, a man can be heard saying: "Open his body armor." One fighter can be seen taking equipment off the body of one of the commandos.

The Red Cross confirmed the bodies of 22 commandos were retrieved.

A witness said the commandos arrived in the town with several tanks but ran out of ammunition after two hours of fighting and received no support from the air. "The commandos were surrounded by the Taliban. Then they brought them into the middle of the street and shot them all," the witness said. He also suggested some Taliban fighters were not from the region and may have been foreign because he could not understand what they were saying when they spoke among themselves.