The bodies of the seven victims were first taken to their home province of Ghazni, where protests were also held Tuesday, with demonstrators bearing the coffins of the dead marching to the provincial governor’s compound.
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Warning shots were fired into the air by security forces to disperse the protesters advancing outside the presidential palace. He did not clarify who had fired the shots or why.
“The only way to prevent such crimes in the future is to take over all government offices until they wake up and make a decision”, demonstrator Sayed Karim, one of thousands who were present at Mazari Square in western Kabul, told Reuters.
Though it is unclear who is responsible, both the Taliban and IS affiliates have been blamed for the beheadings, which have prompted fears of sectarian bloodshed in the war-torn country.
President Ashraf Ghani has condemned the killings and promised that police would investigate.
The Kabul marchers called on Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah to resign.
According to security officials in Afghanistan’s Zabul province, the fighting – a few of which has involved heavy weaponry – has raged since Friday, when supporters of Mullah Mansoor Dadullah clashed with fighters loyal to Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
They had been seized in Ghazni up to six months ago, officials have said.
The United Nations (UN)’s Special Representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Nicholas Haysom, in a statement decried the deaths as a violation of the worldwide law. A few chanted “Death to Ghani, Death to Abdullah”, as well as “Death to Daesh” and “Death to the Taliban”.
The demonstration – one of the largest in recent years in Afghanistan – highlighted growing discontent at the government’s inability to counter groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State-inspired factions.
Taliban and Isis are rivals as they fight for control in Afghanistan, which has been the former’s stronghold.
“No-one can tolerate the situation we have in this country anymore”, he said, adding that the war had become more savage even than the country’s civil war of the 1980s and 1990s, when, despite widespread violence, “no-one was ever beheaded”.
The victims who were beheaded included a 9-year old girl and two much older people, their throats cut with metal wire.
In addition to the Taliban and Islamic State, many Hazara have directed their anger extra broadly towards the Pashtun, the most important ethic group from which the Islamist actions recruit most of their followers.
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“For too long, we have been buried in silence”, said Mohamad Ishaq Mowahidi, one of the protest organizers.
