1998 killing of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan

Before this incident, Iran was supportive of the Afghan Northern Alliance, and the city of Mazar-i-Sharif was one of the headquarters of the alliance. It is reported that between May and July 1997 Abdul Malik Pahlawan executed thousands of Taliban prisoners as revenge for the 1995 death of Abdul Ali Mazari. "He is widely believed to have been responsible for the brutal massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban prisoners after inviting them into Mazar-i-Sharif." As revenge, Taliban forces captured Mazar-i-Sharif and killed hundreds of Northern Alliance members, particularly members of the Hazara and Uzbek ethnic groups as they were accused of being the ones who carried out the killings of Taliban prisoners. ==Incident==

On 8 August 1998, Taliban forces captured Mazar-i-Sharif. After this incident, 11 Iranian diplomats and Mahmoud Saremi, a correspondent from Iran's state news agency (IRNA), were attacked at the Iranian consulate and subsequently disappeared. Unofficial reports from the city indicated that all these men were killed. Later it was confirmed that eight of the Iranian diplomats (Nasser Rigi, Noorollah Norouzi, Karim Heydarian, Rashid Paryav Fallah, Heydar-Ali Bagheri, Mohammad-Ali Ghiyasi, Majid Nouri Niyarki, and Mohammad-Nasser Naseri) and Saremi were killed. ==Perpetrators==

The Taliban spokesmen said the Iranians had been killed by renegade forces who had acted without orders.{{cite news ==Aftermath==

Shortly after their deaths, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, visited the families of the fallen. The incident caused a public furor in Iran and many observers were concerned that Iran would be involved in a military response to the attack. At the time, over 70,000 Iranian troops were deployed along the Afghan border. ==In popular culture==

An Iranian film Mazar Sharif was made on this story in 2015. Abdolhassan Barzideh was the director. ==See also==