Taliban 'looking into' video showing executions

In July, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan accused the Taliban of carrying out hundreds of human rights violations

The Taliban are "looking into" a video circulating on social media that appears to show its fighters executing captured members of an Afghan insurgent group, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

The National Resistance Front (NRF), a nascent group operating mainly out of the Panjshir Valley, said the video showed some of its fighters being executed, and accused the Taliban of "war crimes".

The video, being shared widely on social media, shows two groups of men squatting on a hillside with their hands tied behind their backs before being shot with automatic rifles by Taliban fighters.

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The fighters can be heard shouting "Allahu Akbar", and a man is later heard saying "stop it, stop it" after the captives slump forward, apparently dead.

Checks by AFP's digital verification team show the first versions of the video only appeared online in the last 24 hours, and government spokesman Bilal Karimi said authorities were investigating.

"We are looking into it to know exactly when these videos were filmed and to know whether they are old," Mr. Karimi told AFP.