The Afghan Taliban have publicly executed a man they believe was involved in killing of their high-ranking officer. The fourth-year student was heading to visit his family for a vacation when the militants captured him.
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Afghanistan's Interior Ministry confirmed the execution on Saturday, saying they had launched a probe "to arrest and punish the perpetrators of this criminal act."
Officials identified the victim as Faizul Rehman, a fourth-year student at the Kabul Polytechnic University. He was stopped while driving from Kabul to his home village of Sewaka in Chak district, some 60 km (37 miles) west of the Afghan capital.
"He wanted to spend his vacation at home but was captured on Thursday by local Taliban," government spokesman Abdul Rehman Mangal said. "Local elders tried to mediate to release him, but they failed."
Suspected of killing intelligence chief
According to the spokesman, the Taliban claimed that the student was involved in a recent assassination of an officer in their movement.
"They accused him of killing Mullah Mirwais, the head of their intelligence in the area," Mangal added.
The student was hanged publicly on Friday.
The main spokesman for the Taliban movement, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the Taliban were also looking into the execution. "Once we finish our investigation and fact-finding, we will share the details," he said.
Before the US invasion in 2001, the Taliban often organized public executions in football stadiums. During recent years, they have staged public lashings, hangings and stoning for crimes such as adultery.
Modern Afghanistan - in the past
Under the Taliban, women were required to wear an all-covering burqa when venturing outside their homes. But there were times in Afghan history when they adopted a more Western clothing style, as these photos show.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Aspiring doctors
This picture, taken in 1962, shows two female medicine students at the University of Kabul listening to their professor as they examine a plaster showing a human body part. At that time, women played an active role in Afghan society. They also had access to education and were able to take up work outside home.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Style on Kabul's streets
Two young women dressed in Western-style outfits are seen in this picture taken in 1962 outside the building of Radio Kabul in the country's capital city, Kabul. After the fundamentalist Taliban took over power in the mid-1990s, women were required to wear an all-covering burqa when in public.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Equal rights for all - not always
In the mid-1970s, female students were a common sight at Afghan education centers such as Kabul's Polytechnical University. But some 20 years later, women's access to education in the conflict-ridden country was completely shut down. And it changed only after the toppling of the Taliban regime in 2001. The right to education for both men and women was enshrined in the 2003 Afghan Constitution.
Image: Getty Images/Hulton Archive/Zh. Angelov
Computer science in its infancy
In this picture a Soviet instructor is seen teaching computing technology to Afghan students at Kabul's Polytechnical Institute. During the 10-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, a number of Soviet lecturers taught at Afghan universities.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Students among themselves
This 1981 picture shows an informal gathering of female and male Afghan students in Kabul. In 1979, a Soviet invasion of land-locked Afghanistan led to a 10-year war. When the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989, a civil war ensued which culminated in the Taliban's accession to power in 1996.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Schools for all
This picture shows Afghan girls at a secondary school in Kabul at the time of the Soviet occupation. During the Taliban regime that followed just a few years later, women and girls were barred from attending school and denied access to education. They were also banned from taking up employment outside home.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
A two-class society
In this picture taken in 1981, a woman, unveiled and without a headscarf, is seen with her children. Scenes such as these have been rare ever since. Even almost 15 years after the collapse of the Taliban regime, women continue to struggle for equality in the male-dominated Afghan society. For instance, there is only one woman taxi driver in the entire country.