Editing Taliban (section)

=== Massacre campaigns ===
According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic [[massacre]]s against civilians. UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001. They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself." "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia and should be prosecuted in international courts", one UN official was quoted as saying. The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. Bin Laden's so-called [[055 Brigade]] was responsible for mass-killings of Afghan civilians. The report by the United Nations quotes "eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people". The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, in late 2011 stated that cruel behaviour under and by the Taliban had been "necessary".<ref name="Newsday 2001">{{Cite news |last=Gargan |first=Edward A |date=October 2001 |title=Taliban massacres outlined for UN |work=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2001/10/12/taliban-massacres-outlined-for-un/}}</ref><ref name="papillonsartpalace.com">{{Cite web |year=2001 |title=Confidential UN report details mass killings of civilian villagers |url=http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/massacre.htm |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021118162327/http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/massacre.htm |archive-date=18 November 2002 |access-date=12 October 2001 |website=Newsday |publisher=newsday.org}}</ref><ref name="Ahmed Rashid/The Telegraph">{{Cite news |date=11 September 2001 |title=Afghanistan resistance leader feared dead in blast |publisher=Ahmed Rashid in the Telegraph |location=London |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1340244/Afghanistan-resistance-leader-feared-dead-in-blast.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1340244/Afghanistan-resistance-leader-feared-dead-in-blast.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=31 December 2011 |title=Taliban spokesman: Cruel behavior was necessary |url=http://www.tolonews.com/en/purso-pal/4847-cruel-behaviour-was-necessary-during-taliban-rule-zaeef-says |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120423154739/http://www.tolonews.com/en/purso-pal/4847-cruel-behaviour-was-necessary-during-taliban-rule-zaeef-says |archive-date=23 April 2012 |access-date=1 September 2012 |publisher=Tolonews.com}}</ref>

In 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's [[World Food Programme]] to 160,000 hungry and starving people "for political and military reasons".<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 January 1998 |title=Associated Press: U.N. says Taliban starving hungry people for military agenda |publisher=Nl.newsbank.com |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NewsLibrary&p_multi=APAB&d_place=APAB&p_theme=newslibrary2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F8B4F98500EA0F8&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM |access-date=1 September 2012}}</ref> The UN said the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.<ref name="Skaine">{{Cite book |last=Skaine |first=Rosemarie |title=Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today |publisher=McFarland |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-7864-3792-4 |page=41}}</ref><ref name="Shanty1">{{Cite book |last=Shanty |first=Frank |title=The Nexus: International Terrorism and Drug Trafficking from Afghanistan |publisher=Praeger |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-313-38521-6 |pages=86–88}}</ref><ref name="UNAMA">{{Cite news |date=9 March 2011 |title=Citing rising death toll, UN urges better protection of Afghan civilians |work=United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan |url=http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1783&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=12602 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726085402/http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1783&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=12602 |archive-date=26 July 2011}}</ref><ref name="Haddon">{{Cite news |last=Haddon |first=Katherine |date=6 October 2011 |title=Afghanistan marks 10 years since war started |agency=Agence France-Presse |url=https://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-marks-10-years-since-war-started-211711851.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111010055026/http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-marks-10-years-since-war-started-211711851.html |archive-date=10 October 2011}}</ref><ref name="The Weekly Standard">{{Cite news |date=10 August 2010 |title=UN: Taliban Responsible for 76% of Deaths in Afghanistan |work=The Weekly Standard |url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/taliban-responsible-76-deaths-afghanistan-un |url-status=dead |access-date=30 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110102054938/http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/taliban-responsible-76-deaths-afghanistan-un |archive-date=2 January 2011}}</ref>

On 8 August 1998, the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i-Sharif. Of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. Once in control the Taliban began to kill people indiscriminately. At first shooting people in the street, they soon began to target Hazaras. Women were raped, and thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate. This [[ethnic cleansing]] left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people dead. At this time [[1998 killing of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan|ten Iranian diplomats]] and a journalist were killed. Iran assumed the Taliban had murdered them, and mobilised its army, deploying men along the border with Afghanistan. By the middle of September there were 250,000 Iranian personnel stationed on the border. Pakistan mediated and the bodies were returned to Tehran towards the end of the month. The killings of the diplomats had been carried out by [[Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan|Sipah-e-Sahaba]], a Pakistani Sunni group with close ties to the ISI. They burned orchards, crops and destroyed irrigation systems, and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes with hundreds of men, women and children still unaccounted for.<ref name="Armajani-207">{{Cite book |last=Armajani |first=Jon |title=Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4051-1742-5 |page=207}}</ref><ref name="Riedel-66-7">{{Cite book |last=Riedel |first=Bruce |title=The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future |publisher=Brookings Institution |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8157-0451-5 |edition=2nd Revised |pages=66–67}}</ref><ref name="Clements3">{{Cite book |last=Clements |first=Frank |title=Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 |page=106}}</ref><ref name="Gutman">{{Cite book |last=Gutman |first=Roy |url=https://archive.org/details/howwemissedstory00gutm/page/142 |title=How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan |publisher=Institute of Peace Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-60127-024-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howwemissedstory00gutm/page/142 142]}}</ref><ref name="Tripathi">{{Cite book |last=Tripathi |first=Deepak |title=Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism |publisher=Potomac |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-59797-530-8 |page=116}}</ref>

In a major effort to retake the [[Shomali Plains]] to the north of Kabul from the United Front, the Taliban indiscriminately killed civilians, while uprooting and expelling the population. Among others, Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, reported on these and other [[war crime]]s. In [[Istalif]], a town famous for handmade potteries and which was home to more than 45,000 people, the Taliban gave 24 hours' notice to the population to leave, then completely razed the town leaving the people destitute.<ref name="NPR">{{Cite news |date=1 August 2002 |title=Re-Creating Afghanistan: Returning to Istalif |publisher=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/aug/afghanistan/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023072254/http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/aug/afghanistan/ |archive-date=23 October 2013}}</ref><ref name="Coburn">{{Cite book |last=Coburn |first=Noah |title=Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8047-7672-1 |page=13}}</ref>

In 1999, the town of [[Bamian]] was taken, hundreds of men, women and children were executed. Houses were razed and some were used for forced labour. There was a further massacre at the town of [[Yakaolang]] in January 2001. An estimated 300 people were murdered, along with two delegations of Hazara elders who had tried to intercede.<ref name="Maley2-240">{{Cite book |last=Maley |first=William |title=The Afghanistan wars |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-333-80290-8 |page=240}}</ref><ref name="Clements4">{{Cite book |last=Clements |first=Frank |title=Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 |page=112}}</ref>

By 1999, the Taliban had forced hundreds of thousands of people from the Shomali Plains and other regions conducting a policy of scorched earth burning homes, farm land and gardens.<ref name="NPR" />