Dasht-e Leili (; ) is a desert in the

Jowzjan Province Jowzjan, sometimes spelled Jawzjan or Jowzjan () is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north of the country bordering neighboring Turkmenistan. The province is divided into 11 districts and contains hundreds of villag ...

Dasht-e-Leili Photos; Sheberghan Prison and Pit Locations at Dasht-e-Leili
Physicians for Human Rights, accessed 19 February 2012. of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

Mass graves of the Afghan Civil War

In May–July 1997, following the first battle of Mazar-i-Sharif during the Afghan Civil War, forces loyal to

Abdul Malik Pahlawan Abdul Malik Pahlawan is an Afghan Uzbek warlord and politician based in Faryab Province in northern Afghanistan. He is the head of the Afghanistan Liberation Party and was heavily involved in the factional fighting that consumed Afghanistan t ...

dumped more than 2,000 summarily executed

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

prisoners of war into at least 20 mass graves in the Leili Desert. A year later, when the Taliban retook the city in August 1998, they massacred thousands

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

civilians and soldiers in the city (as well as numerous indiscriminate killings of others such as

Uzbeks The Uzbeks () are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, being among the largest Turkic ethnic groups in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakhs, Kazakh and Karakalpaks, Karakalpak ...

and

Tajiks Tajiks (; ; also spelled ''Tadzhiks'' or ''Tadjiks'') is the name of various Persian-speaking Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term ''Tajik'' ...

), dumping hundreds to thousands of them in the Leili Desert as well. In December 2001, an unknown number of hundreds to thousands of Taliban prisoners of war were killed, likely by

Junbish-i Milli The National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (, ''Junbish-i-Milli Islami Afghanistan''), sometimes called simply Junbish, is a Turkic political party in Afghanistan. Its founder is Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum who created it in 1992 made from h ...

, and also dumped in the Leili Desert near the city of

Sheberghan Sheberghān or Shaburghān or shāhpurgān ( Uzbek, Pashto, ), also spelled ''Shebirghan'' and ''Shibarghan'', is the capital city of the Jowzjan Province in northern Afghanistan. The city of Sheberghan has a population of 175,599. It has four ...

. This event, which became known as the " Dasht-i-Leili massacre", occurred during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

References

{{coord, 36, 53, 49, N, 65, 39, 57, E, display=title Deserts of Afghanistan