Civil War in Afghanistan 1978-present
This war has ravaged the country for over 30 years now, with several foreign actors playing important roles during different periods. Since 2001 US and NATO troops have been fighting in Afghanistan in the "War on Terrorism" that is also treated in the corresponding section below.
| Armed conflict | Perpetrator | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Civil war in Afghanistan | Taliban | ||
| Incident | Type of crime | Persons responsible | Notes |
| Executions and torture after fall of Mazar-i-Sharif on August 8, 1998 | War crimes (Murder, cruel or degrading treatment and torture; Summary execution) | Taliban | Mass killing of the locals; 4,000 to 5,000 civilians were executed, and many more reported tortured. |
| Assassination of Iranian diplomats | Crimes against humanity (murder of civilians), offenses against the customary law of nations (outrages upon diplomatic plenipotentiaries and agents) | Taliban | 8 Iranian diplomats were assassinated and an Iranian press correspondent was murdered by the Taliban. |
| Murder of Ahmed Shah Massoud, on September 9, 2001 | War crimes (Perfidious use of suicide bombers disguised as journalists (who are protected persons) in murder.) | Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda | Perfidiously used suicide bombers disguised as television journalists to murder Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, the leader of the only remaining military opponent of the Taliban, two days before the September 11th Attacks, constituting a failure to bear arms openly, and misuse of the status of protected persons, to wit, journalists in war zones. |
| Civil war in Afghanistan | Northern Alliance | ||
| Incident | Type of crime | Persons responsible | Notes |
| Atrocities against Taliban prisoners of war | War crimes (Maltreatment leading to death of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan POWs (Taliban)) | Northern Alliance partisans | Allegedly did place captured Taliban POWs in cargo containers, and did seal them, leading to deaths of those within due to suffocation and excessive heat, thereby constituting war crimes. |
Read more about this topic: List Of War Crimes
Famous quotes containing the words civil war in, civil war, civil and/or war:
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries in a thousand years have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover in their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“From the beginning, the placement of [Clarence] Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means. The full story of his confirmation raises questions not only about who lied and why, but, more important, about what happens when politics becomes total war and the truth—and those who tell it—are merely unfortunate sacrifices on the way to winning.”
—Jane Mayer, U.S. journalist, and Jill Abramson b. 1954, U.S. journalist. Strange Justice, p. 8, Houghton Mifflin (1994)