Taliban peel Afghan man alive, gouge out his eyes in Afghanistan

Taliban militants have peeled the skin of a young Afghan man off his body before killing him in central Afghanistan over the alleged involvement of his kin in the murder of a militant commander.

Local officials said the incident happened last December, when Taliban militants dragged the 21-year-old Fazl Ahmad from his house, gouged out his eyes, and skinned his chest while he was alive and left his heart completely exposed.

The militants later throw his body off a cliff the same height as a 10-story building. The details of the incident have only recently emerged.

Ahmad was killed because one of his distant relatives was suspected of having killed a Taliban commander.

The militant group has denied the crime, which was documented in recently circulated videos and photographs.

The incident is seen by officials as a sign that the Taliban militancy has taken an increasingly brutal turn.

In late May, Taliban appointed Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader after former chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike.

Afghanistan has witnessed a spike in kidnapping incidents and murders, widely blamed on the Taliban. More than 200 people have been abducted and at least 21 others killed in the country's north and east in the last two weeks.

The country is gripped by insecurity more than 14 years after the United States and its allies invaded it as part of a so-called war on terrorism.

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