Alwaght- ISIS-affiliated Takfiri in Afghanistan have kidnapped 20 Shiite Muslims from the Hazara community in the volatile southern province of Zabul at the Kabul-Kandahar highway.
The kidnapping took place on Saturday, with Afghan officials saying that the victims had been taken away from the bus they were travelling in at gunpoint. Ghulam Jalani Farahi, deputy provincial police chief, said on Saturday it is not yet known if the abductees are men or women.
The abduction has sent shockwaves throughout the whole Hazara community. Officials have also launched a massive operation to locate and release the hostages.
Early this month seven Hazara Shiites were found beheaded in Zabul after being abducted for a period of six months in the neighboring Ghazni province.
The killings sparked demonstrations nationwide, including in Kabul, where thousands of people demanded the government improve security across the country.
Taliban militants are suspected to have killed the seven, who had been kidnapped in the neighboring Ghazni Province nearly six months earlier.
President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan strongly condemned the beheading of the Shiite Muslims who included four men, two women and a child.
A statement released by the Presidential Palace in Kabul noted that, “the beheading of civilians especially women and a child in Khak-e-Afghan district of Zabul province is an atrocious act and a sign of desperation and defeat of the enemies of the people of Afghanistan.”
The recent spate of kidnappings in Afghanistan recalls the bloody days of murders of Hazaras under both the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist groups. This includes the 1998 massacre of 2,000 civilians, most of them Hazara, in the northern city of Mazar-I Sharif.
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In Focus
Ansarullah
A Zaidi Shiite movement operating in Yemen. It seeks to establish a democratic government in Yemen.
Shiite
represents the second largest denomination of Islam. Shiites believe Ali (peace be upon him) to be prophet"s successor in the Caliphate.
Resistance
Axis of Resistances refers to countries and movements with common political goal, i.e., resisting against Zionist regime, America and other western powers. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine are considered as the Axis of Resistance.
Persian Gulf Cooperation Council
A regional political u n i o n consisting of Arab states of the Persian Gulf, except for Iraq.
Taliban
Taliban is a Sunni fundamentalist movement in Afghanistan. It was founded by Mohammed Omar in 1994.
Wahhabism & Extremism
Wahhabism is an extremist pseudo-Sunni movement, which labels non-Wahhabi Muslims as apostates thus paving the way for their bloodshed.
Kurds
Kurds are an ethnic group in the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region, which spans adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They are an Iranian people and speak the Kurdish languages, which form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian branch of Iranian languages.
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949.
Islamic Awakening
Refers to a revival of the Islam throughout the world, that began in 1979 by Iranian Revolution that established an Islamic republic.
Al-Qaeda
A militant Sunni organization founded by Osama bin Laden at some point between 1988 and 1989
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