| Taliban publicly executed a man and girl on Monday for eloping when she was already engaged to marry someone else, an official said, in a sign of the grip the Taliban have over parts of Afghanistan. Hashim Noorzai, head of Khash Rud district in southwestern Nimruz province, said the two were executed by gunshots in front of a crowd of villagers. He said he had no details on how the Taliban had come to be involved in passing judgement on them but that much of the mainly desert district was under their control. Nimruz is a sparsely-populated area near the Iranian and Pakistani borders where foreign or government troops had little presence. Like much of the south of the country, it has become a stronghold for the Taliban. Taliban spokesmen were not immediately available for comment. |