Taliban Behead 17 Caught Dancing To Music At Party

Seventeen civilians — 15 men and two women — were beheaded in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province on August 27, 2012, after gathering for a late-night party with music and dancing, according to Afghan officials (Channel 4).

The bodies were discovered on Monday morning by a roadside in Helmand's Musa Qala district, a region effectively under Taliban control. District government chief Neyamatullah Khan told reporters the group had gathered for a celebration with music and dancing, and that the Taliban had attacked to punish what the insurgents consider un-Islamic behavior — mixed-gender socializing, music, and dance (RFE/RL).

The provincial government's account was not entirely uniform. Helmand provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told RFE/RL that the insurgents may have been punishing the villagers for allegedly urging a local uprising against the militants — "these 15 civilian and two women were killed allegedly for having contact with the government" — and said it remained unclear who was behind the killings. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings as an "unforgivable crime." The attack landed in the middle of a grim 24 hours in Helmand — 10 Afghan soldiers died in a mass insurgent attack the same day, and two US soldiers were shot dead by a rogue Afghan soldier — underscoring how much power the insurgency still wielded in the south as international forces drew down.

Under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, all music and film had been banned as un-Islamic. For Afghans watching the withdrawal, the beheadings raised a question that no press statement could soften: what would Taliban governance look like in practice when the foreign troops left?