Video Shows Taliban Brutally Slaying Woman Amid Cheers From Villagers

A video of the brutal public slaying of an Afghan woman by a militant, believed to be a member of the Taliban, was caught on camera last month near Kabul, laying bare the perilously unstable law and order situation in Afghanistan, ahead of the planned withdrawal of NATO troops in 2014.

The three-minute video shot in a village in Afghanistan's Parwan province and obtained by Reuters shows a turban-clad man approaching a fully-clad woman kneeling on the ground, before proceeding to shoot her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, amid cheers from about 150 spectators.

Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it's the wrong way, a man says as the shooter readies to carry out the execution. It is the order of Allah that she be executed, he goes on to add, a Reuters report said.

The spectators were seen chanting, Long live the Afghan Mujahideen! (Islamist fighters), after the woman was shot dead.

The video, which has been doing the rounds in Kabul, was shot a week ago in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district near Kabul, according to the provincial Governor Basir Salangi.

When I saw this video, I closed my eyes ... The woman was not guilty; the Taliban are guilty, Salangi told Reuters.

It was initially reported that the executioner was the woman's husband, but a senior provincial officer, Col. Masjidi, said the woman's husband was a member of the village militia that had killed a Taliban leader, and the woman was executed by the Taliban seeking revenge.

Provincial government spokesperson Roshna Khalid identified the victim as a 22-year-old woman named Najiba, who was accused of having affairs with two or more Taliban fighters, the New York Times reported.

A member of the provincial council, Qari Abdul Rahman Ahmadi, said the woman had allegedly eloped with a Taliban member, who in turn was acting as a spy for the government forces. He was executed in a nearby village before Najiba was brought to Qimchok by her husband, Ahmadi said.

The militant organization was held responsible for a mysterious sickness that affected a number of girls' schools in Afghanistan in the recent months, even as the threat of the resurgence of the Taliban looms large.

More than 270 schoolgirls and three teachers were affected in two separate alleged poison attacks in April and May in the northern Takhar province of Afghanistan, which the police and education officials say was the handiwork of Islamists opposed to women's right to education.

Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said the Taliban intended to close down girls' schools before the coalition troops withdraw in 2014.

A part of their Al Farooq spring offensive operation is ... to close schools. By poisoning girls they want to create fear. They try to make families not send their children to school, NDS spokesperson Lutfullah Mashal told Reuters.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Education said in May that 550 schools in 11 provinces, where the Taliban have strong influence, had been shut down by the militants.

However, the Taliban denied the allegations of involvement and said they were false allegations of the invaders and their hired media, which were part of the media war and have no reality.