The Afghanistan Taliban captured and beheaded two boys, aged 10 and 16 years old, as a warning to villagers not to cooperate with the authorities.  The boys’ “crime” was to go to an Afghan Army base to scrounge food.

Local police chief Jamal Agha said, “Both of them were innocent children and had nothing to do with government or foreigners.”

This happened in the southern province of Kandahar, where the Taliban has beheaded dozens of people over the past couple of years; Some of those cases were even more egregious.

Last July, the Taliban accused a 16-year-old boy of spying for the government.  They murdered him by beheading and skinned the body.  And then in August, they kidnapped and beheaded a girl of 6 and a boy aged twelve.

It shows the Taliban is not winning over any hearts and minds and is unable to enforce its warped version of Islamic discipline as western powers prepare to leave.  But it also shows the challenges the new Afghan government is going to have to deal with once the Americans and allies are gone.