By IRNA,
Kabul : Taliban insurgents pulled some 50 passengers off a bus in southern Afghanistan and beheaded as many as 30 of them after accusing them of being soldiers traveling in civilian clothes, Afghan officials said.
The police chief of Kandahar Province, where the attack occurred, said that of six bodies retrieved so far, all had been beheaded, mutilated and dumped.
The police had received information that 24 others had been killed but had yet to find the bodies, the police chief, General Matiullah Qati, said.
The attack occurred Thursday on the main road running from the southern city of Kandahar to the western town of Herat, Qati said.
It took place in Maiwand District, which is known as an area with a significant Taliban presence, where attacks on military convoys are frequent.
It is also the main road for British and Afghan army troops traveling to Helmand Province, where the insurgency is strongest in the country.
The attack follows a pattern of intimidation and brutality that Taliban insurgents have pursued, spreading terror in an effort to undermine support for the Afghan government.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, confirmed Sunday that the group was responsible for the killings and said that 27 passengers had been taken from a bus three days earlier and killed after appearing before a Taliban court.