IEA rejects UN chief’s claim of extrajudicial killings of former officials

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) on Monday rejected claims made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that scores of former Afghan officials, security force members, and people who worked with the foreign military have been killed since the withdrawal of US and NATO troops.

IEA deputy spokesman Inamullah Samangani tweeted that the allegations were not true.

“The UN Secretary-General’s information that hundreds of members of the previous government were killed after the rule of the Islamic Emirate is not true,” he said.

According to Samangani, after the general amnesty was declared in August last year, following the collapse of the previous government, “no one is allowed to harm anyone, if anything happened as a result of personal revenge, we investigated it and punished the perpetrators”.

This comes after Reuters reported that a report by Guterres to the UN Security Council states that the IEA and its allies are believed to have killed scores of former Afghan officials, security force members and people who worked with the international military contingent since the U.S.-led pullout.

Guterres’ report painted a picture of worsening living conditions for Afghanistan’s 39 million people despite an end of combat.

“An entire complex social and economic system is shutting down,” Guterres said.

The UN mission “continues to receive credible allegations of killings, enforced disappearances and other violations” against former officials, security force members and people who worked for the US-led international military contingent despite a general amnesty announced by the IEA, the report said.

The mission states that more than 100 of those individuals have been killed – more than two-thirds of them allegedly by the IEA or their affiliates – since August 15.

Guterres stated there are also allegations of the extra-judicial killings of at least 50 people suspected of belonging to Daesh (ISIS-K).