Kabul: Afghanistan`s interior ministry
today said that a young boy of eight brutally killed by
insurgents was hanged after his father, a policeman, refused
to join the Taliban.
The boy had been abducted from a bazaar in the
district of Gereshk in the southern province of Helmand.
"(He) was brutally hanged and his body was found on
Friday," an interior ministry statement said.
A senior ministry official said that the boy had been
killed after his father, a police official, had refused
demands from the Taliban to join the insurgency.
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi rejected the
accusation as propaganda.
In a similar incident in June last year, the Taliban
reportedly hanged a seven-year-old boy in the same province,
accusing him of spying for the government.
The Taliban have been waging a brutal campaign against
the Western-backed government and NATO and Afghan forces since
their hardline regime was overthrown in a US-led invasion in
2001.
Bureau Report
