Today, on August 8th, in 1998, the Taliban conquered the town of Mazar-i Sharif in Afghanistan, and began actions against the Shi'a that could be described as genocide, tribal warfare, or Sunni/Shi'a conflict, or all three.

Human Rights Watch has a good summary of the events in their report.  Here are some excerpts:

On August 8, 1998, Taliban militia forces captured the city of Mazar-i Sharif in northwest Afghanistan, the only major city controlled by the United Front, the coalition of forces opposed to the Taliban. The fall of Mazar was part of a successful offensive that gave the Taliban control of almost every major city and important significant territory in northern and central Afghanistan. Within the first few hours of seizing control of the city, Taliban troops killed scores of civilians in indiscriminate attacks, shooting noncombatants and suspected combatants alike in residential areas, city street sand markets. Witnesses described it as a "killing frenzy" as the advancing forces shot at "anything that moved." Retreating opposition forces may also have engaged in indiscriminate shooting as they fled the city. Human Rights Watch believes that at least hundreds of civilians were among those killed as the panicked population of Mazar-i Sharif tried to evade the gunfire or escape the city.

Remember that the Taliban were praised, both before 9/11 and after, for having brought "peace" and "stability" to Afghanistan in the decades of anarchy that followed the war against the Soviets.  We see the same praise for the same "peace" and "stability" that Islam is bringing to parts of Africa today.

In the days that followed, Taliban forces carried out a systematic search for male members of the ethnic Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek communities in the city. The Hazaras, a Persian-speaking Shi'a ethnic group, were particularly targeted, in part because of their religious identity. During the house-to-house searches, scores and perhaps hundreds of Hazara men and boys were summarily executed, apparently to ensure that they would be unable to mount any resistance to the Taliban. Also killed were eight Iranian officials at the Iranian consulate in the city and an Iranian journalist. Thousands of men from various ethnic communities were detained first in the overcrowded city jail and then transported to other cities, including Shiberghan, Herat and Qandahar. Most of the prisoners were transported in large container trucks capable of holding one hundred to 150 people. In two known instances, when the trucks reached Shiberghan, some 130 kilometers west of Mazar, nearly all of the men inside had asphyxiated or died of heat stroke inside the closed metal containers. Some prisoners were also transported in smaller trucks. As of late October, some 4,500 men from Mazar remained in detention.

[...]

In the absence of a full-scale investigation, there is no way to know precisely how many were killed in the weeks following the fall of Mazar to the Taliban. Based on interviews with survivors and other informed sources, Human Rights Watch believes that at least 2,000 may have been killed in the city and possibly many more. Many civilians were also killed in aerial bombardments and rocket attacks as they fled south of the city toward the Alborz mountains. Human Rights Watch is also concerned by persistent reports that women and girls, particularly in certain Hazara neighborhoods of Mazar-i Sharif, were raped and abducted during the Taliban takeover of the city.

Other sources double the estimates of killings.

The killings of Hazara men and boys appear to have been carried out largely in reprisal for the killing of several thousand Taliban soldiers after a failed attempt by the Taliban to take the city from May to July 1997. Of these, some 2,000 were reportedly summarily executed after capture in Shiberghan and other areas, including areas to which prisoners from Mazar were deported. A number of neighborhoods targeted for searches in Mazar had been among those where resistance by Hizb-i Wahdat troops against the Taliban had begun at that time. Witnesses stated that Taliban conducting the house-to-house searches accused Hazaras in general of killing Taliban troops in 1997 and did not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. In speeches given at mosques throughout Mazar, the Taliban governor, Mulla Manon Niazi, also blamed Hazaras for the 1997 killings.

The Taliban attacked the city, their soldiers were killed in the failed attempt, and when the second attack succeeded, the residents were killed for having resisted.  Note that the Shi'a parenthetically also murdered 2000 prisoners of war.  There are no "good guys", or "friends and allies", in this story.

The Hazaras were also singled out because they are Shi'a. The Taliban are Sunni Muslims and followers of a strict conservative sect that considers the Shi'a to be infidels. During their search operations in Mazar, the Taliban ordered some residents to prove that they were not Shi'a by reciting Sunni prayers. Over a period of several weeks, Governor Niazi made inflammatory speeches against Hazaras in which he ordered them to become Sunnis, leave Afghanistan, or risk being killed.

Note the slight modification to the traditional three choices given to "People of the Book" (ie. Jews and Christians): convert to Islam, pay the jizya tax, or die.

The Taliban forces that captured Mazar-i Sharif included Pashtuns from Balkh, the province of which Mazar is the capital and the name of a town northwest of Mazar. These Balkh Pashtuns had been members of a militia aligned with the Hizb-i Islami, a largely Pashtun faction that was part of the United Front. Some weeks before the offensive on Mazar, Hizb-i Wahdat forces launched an operation in Balkh to drive Pashtuns from the area so that they would not be able to provide support to the advancing Taliban troops. The Hizb-i Wahdat forces reportedly engaged in widespread rape and looting. The rapes in particular reportedly drove several key commanders among the Balkh Pashtuns to switch sides and help the Taliban. Some were reportedly also unhappy with Hizb-i Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's courting of Shi'a religious leaders. Other commanders were simply bought off. Balkh Pashtuns were among the first troops entering the city and have been identified among the Taliban troops who engaged in indiscriminate shooting on the first day. Balkh Pashtuns also took part in the house-to-house searches and may have acted as informers identifying Hazara neighborhoods and houses. However, witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch stated that the search parties also included Taliban officers who were not from local areas and that the Taliban officers separating prisoners at the jail were not Balkh Pashtuns but non-local "mainstream" Taliban — those from Qandahar or other predominantly Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan where many of the senior Taliban leaders are based. The speeches by Governor Niazi also demonstrate an intent at senior levels to target Hazaras. Other witnesses stated that senior Taliban leaders were not only aware of the extent of the killing in Mazar but had decided to allow it to continue for several days before stopping it.

[...]

By the second day of the Taliban takeover of Mazar, the newly installed governor, Mulla Manon Niazi, delivered speeches at mosques throughout the city, sometimes several in one day, threatening violence against Hazaras in retaliation for the killing of the Taliban prisoners in 1997, criticizing them for being Shi'a and urging them to convert, and warning other residents that they would also be punished if they protected Hazaras. Virtually every witness who stayed in Mazar after the first day heard one or more of these speeches. While they differed in some details, the themes were uniformly anti-Shi'a and anti-Hazara and consistently held Hazaras responsible for the 1997 killings. These speeches, given by the most senior Taliban official in Mazar at the time, clearly indicate that the killings and other attacks on Hazaras were not the actions of renegade Taliban forces but had the sanction of the Taliban authorities.

In one speech, Niazi was reported to have stated, "Last year you rebelled against us and killed us. From all your homes you shot at us. Now we are here to deal with you." In another speech he reportedly said, "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi'a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras."Although he reportedly stated, "We are not here for revenge. What has happened has happened," he told Hazaras that "If you do not show your loyalty, we will burn your houses, and we will kill you. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan." In another speech he warned Hazaras that "wherever you go we will catch you. If you go up, we will pull you down by your feet; if you hide below, we will pull you up by your hair." Families petitioning Niazi for the release of detained relatives were told that he would consider releasing anyone except the Hazaras.

So, was this a tit-for-tat mass-murder of civilians in revenge for the mass-murder of prisoners?  Or, was it ethnic warfare, Pashtun versus Hazara?  Or, was it religious warfare, Sunni versus Shi'a?  As usual in Dar-al Islam, the answer is "Yes".

Thousands of people were killed in the late 1990's in Afghanistan, based on their ethnicity and/or their religious affiliation.   As long as Muslims are doing the killing, the world turns a blind eye.  The standard to which the Israel, U.S., and U.K. are held does not apply to the Religion of Peace.  The West did not notice this genocide, and if we did notice it, it was forgotten by now.   We can be sure that the Shi'a of Afghanistan and elsewhere have not forgotten about this incident, and the many other similar incidents.  We cannot begin to benefit from, or utilize, these fractures and fissures if we are not even aware of them.

Previous Days in the "Religion of Peace™":

Aug 7: Gallipoli: Chunuk Bair

Aug 6: Benazir Bhutto Resigns

Aug 5: Iran Rejects Nuclear Offer

Aug 4: Uganda Expels Asians

Aug 3: John Garang