Ethnic Pashtuns are being targeted in violent attacks...

Ethnic Pashtuns are being targeted in violent attacks and looting sprees in northern Afghanistan, according to a report released by the US advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
Drawing on interviews with local villagers and foreign observers, the 56-page report detailed summary executions, beatings, sexual violence, abductions and looting against the Pashtuns which have occurred since the ouster of the Taliban regime.
In one example, Hazara gunmen killed 37 Pashtun men in the village of Bargah-e Afghani in Chimtal district of Balkh province in early December 2001.
The attacks are partly in reprisal for perceived support given to the Taliban by local Pashtuns, the report said.
Militant Muslim groups comprised of Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazara people are implicated in the attacks, as well as armed villagers from non-Pashtun communities.
The attacks, which have been corroborated by a government team appointed in February by Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai, have come in advance of the Loya Jirga, the country's legislative assembly.
The Loya Jirga process will begin at the district level on April 13 and will lead in June to the selection of a new government for a two-year transitional period.