A prominent rights group Friday demanded the release of a person detained by the government for allegedly providing information to media outlets about an army airstrike this week in which 12 civilians, mostly children, were killed and 18 others wounded.
The order to arrest at least one person accused of speaking about the Wednesday strike in northern Takhar province was made by Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh on Thursday. He tweeted that “the person responsible for the spread of this venomous & fake news was arrested immediately.”
Saleh “is trying to silence those who reported a potentially unlawful airstrike that killed civilians, including many children,” said Human Rights Watch Associate Asia Director Patricia Gossman. She demanded an impartial investigation into the airstrike.
A recent increase in violence nationwide comes as Afghan government representatives and the Taliban are holding peace talks in Qatar, where the Taliban have for years maintained a political office. The negotiations, envisaged under a U.S. deal signed with the insurgents in February, are meant to end Afghanistan’s grueling 19-year war and are seen as the country’s best chance at peace.
Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission in a statement Friday said initial reports show that Afghan forces launched an airstrike Wednesday on a mosque that killed 12 children and wounded 18 others, including a cleric who was teaching the children.
The statement said the airstrike happened when a Taliban convoy passed by the mosque.
The government has not said whether there were any Taliban fighters in the vicinity of a mosque in which several children were studying when Wednesday’s attack took place.
Saleh in a tweet said a Taliban sniper unit that was responsible for killing Afghan special forces was the target of the airstrike.
The Defense Ministry said at least 12 Taliban fighters were killed in the airstrike, adding that the reports about civilian casualties would be investigated.
HRW said “the government has a poor record of investigating such incidents.”
A U.N. report found that civilian casualties from airstrikes carried out by Afghan forces tripled in the first six months of this year, compared to the same time period last year. Afghan forces were responsible for 23% of the civilian casualties, while the Taliban were responsible for 43%, the report said.
According to the report, 1,282 people were killed in violence in the first six months of 2020 and 2,176 were wounded.
A Taliban attack on an Afghan military base in western Nimroz province Thursday killed at least 20 soldiers, wounded three, and three others were taken hostage, Afghan officials said.
Member of parliament Gul Ahmad Noorzad said “weak leadership in the Afghan army and police is the main reason for these types of casualties.”
Another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, said 23 soldiers were killed and the Taliban took all of the weapons and ammunition from the compound.
Taliban spokesman Yousaf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Defense Ministry in a statement Friday said a separate airstrike in northern Nimroz killed 21 Taliban fighters, including two of their commanders, and wounded five others. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban on that attack.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
