US Condemns Taliban's Plan to Reinstate Executions, Amputations

The United States strongly condemned the Taliban's plans to reinstate amputations and executions as a type of punishment in Afghanistan, State Department spokesperson Ned price said on Friday.

"We condemn in the strongest terms reports of reinstating amputations and executions of Afghans. The acts, the Taliban are talking about here, would constitute clear gross abuses of human rights," Price said at a press briefing.

"We stand firm with the international community to hold perpetrators of any such abuses accountable," he stressed.

Taliban official has said the movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public, according to The Associated Press.

In an interview with AP, one of the founders of the Taliban, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, warning the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he added, pointing out that it had a deterrent effect. He said the Cabinet was studying whether to do punishments in public and will “develop a policy.”