New Afghan mass grave a flashback to a brutal past

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2007

KABUL (AFP) — In a hilly desert just outside Kabul, three small caves dug into a sandy slope have yielded more than a dozen skeletons, some with bullet holes through the skulls, one still with tufts of hair.

It is suspected there are several such underground chambers and more skeletons -- perhaps hundreds, says the city's criminal investigation chief, Alishah Paktiawal, although this has yet to be confirmed.

The latest mass grave to be unearthed in Afghanistan -- there are about 20 known sites, human rights groups say -- was shown to police more than a week ago by a man in his late 40s.

He told media he had first seen it 12 years ago, before migrating to Iran where thousands of Afghans waited out the 1992-1996 civil war and the harsh Taliban regime that...