Four men found guilty of carrying out several deadly bombings last year were hanged by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban before dawn today in Kabul's town square, near the war-damaged presidential palace.
"The four men who were hanged confessed to taking part in a series of bomb explosions in the Afghan capital last year," said the Taliban authorities. Bombs planted at the foreign ministry, a local hotel and near the education ministry killed one person and injured dozens of others.
The Taliban, who rule 95 per cent of Afghanistan, blamed the explosions on the opposition, who are led by ousted president Mr Burhanuddin Rabbani and his military chief Mr Ahmed Shah Massood.
Public punishments are not new to Kabul.
During Mr Rabbani's four-year rule gallows were constructed in a public park and two men were hanged. Mr Rabbani now heads a group of Islamic factions who were once bitter rivals against the Taliban.
Today’s hanging took place in the same square where the Taliban hanged Afghanistan's former communist president Mr Najibullah five years ago.
Mr Najibullah's communist regime was overthrown in 1992 by US-backed insurgents, who allowed him to remain in Kabul under UN protection.
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But after the Taliban overran Kabul in September 1996, they dragged Najibullah and his brother from their United Nations sanctuary, tortured and hanged them. The brothers were accused of murdering thousands of people during the 1979-1989 occupation of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union.
In Kabul today, some residents criticised the regime's public executions.
"These men who planted these bombs should have been punished - but in secret, not here in the public square," said Mr Ali Jan, a Kabul resident. "In Afghanistan there is no work, nothing for people to do and that is why everyone is coming here to look. It is very bad for us."
AP