Deaths of 200 Talibs Confirmed

A northern Afghan warlord admitted Friday that 200 Taliban prisoners died last year while being transported in shipping containers, some by suffocation, but he said the deaths were unintentional and mostly caused by disease and injuries suffered in heavy fighting.

Reports that as many as 960 captured Taliban fighters suffocated after they were crammed into unventilated metal shipping containers began emerging late last year. This week, the United Nations envoy to Afghanistan said the current government did not have the resources to investigate the claims.

Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the country’s most powerful warlords, said the Taliban fighters died during a four-day operation in November to transfer them from Kunduz, which had just been captured by the Northern Alliance, to the northern city of Sheberghan.

“In no case were any prisoners killed. In no case was there any intention that they should die in containers,” Dostum said in a joint statement with three other Northern Alliance commanders.

The statement said 200 of 400 people died.

“It is essential to recognize that most of these died of wounds from bombing and fighting in Kunduz ... but also due to disease, suffocation, suicide and a general weakness after weeks of intense fighting and bombardment,” the statement added.

Investigators for the U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights said hundreds ended up at a mass grave site in nearby Dasht-e-Leili.