The Taliban killed at least 16 people Tuesday and kidnapped dozens of others after pulling them off buses in northern Afghanistan, officials said, the latest assault since the insurgents named a new leader last week. The Taliban claimed they were targeting Afghan security officials aboard the buses passing through Aliabad district in the province of Kunduz, where the insurgents briefly overran the provincial capital in a stunning military victory last year.
Around 200 passengers were travelling in four buses towards Kabul when they were waylaid by Taliban gunmen, with some killed on the side of the road at point-blank range, officials said. "The Taliban shot dead 16 passengers and they are still holding more than 30 others," said Sayed Mahmood Danish, spokesman for the governor of Kunduz. Regional police commander Shir Aziz Kamawal gave a death toll of 17 and did not clearly confirm the identities of the passengers. "They (Taliban) have released some passengers but are holding many others. None of the passengers were wearing military uniform but some may have been former police," he said.
Residents of insurgency-prone Aliabad told AFP the Taliban were holding an informal court in a local mosque, scrutinising the ID documents of the abducted passengers and interrogating them for any government links. "We had precise intelligence that 26 Afghan commandoes and police were among the passengers," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP, adding that six of them were killed while trying to escape.
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