Top Taliban Official: Executions, Strict Punishment Will Return to Afghanistan

Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi poses for a photo in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 22, 2021. Mullah Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban, says the hard-line movement will once again carry out punishments like executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public. AP Photo/Felipe Dana

A top Taliban official in Afghanistan said that the extremist group that now rules the country will carry out executions and the amputations of hands and feet.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Taliban co-founder Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed criticism of the group’s previous rule of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, where public executions, floggings, stonings, and amputations were commonplace. Turabi, who lost an eye and a leg fighting against Soviet invaders in the 1980s, is the head of the new Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and is in charge of enforcing punishments.