'Taliban public execution' of Afghan woman

A video has emerged showing the public killing of a woman after her alleged conviction by an informal Taliban court of killing her husband. The video was shot in Jowzjan Province a month or two ago, officials say, and has just surfaced on social media. A crowd listens as the verdict is given before the woman, sitting on the ground in a burqa, is shot in the back of the head. The Taliban have not commented. Similar killings in the past were widely condemned. The Taliban used to publicly execute women - usually over adultery - in the main stadium in the capital Kabul when they were in power in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Last year, a young woman was stoned to death in Ghor province in central Afghanistan after being accused of adultery. In August 2011, a woman and a man she had eloped with were stoned to death in the district of Dashte Archi in Kunduz province. A Taliban spokesman defended the 2011 incident at the time saying: "Anyone who knows about Islam knows that stoning is in the Koran, and that it is Islamic law. "There are people who call it inhuman - but in doing so they insult the Prophet. They want to bring foreign thinking to this country." Mob killings are not uncommon in Afghanistan. In March, a woman called Farkhunda Malikzada was savagely beaten and set ablaze in central Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a copy of the Koran. The murder triggered protests across the country and led to global condemnation of the treatment of Afghan women.