The British government has strongly supported an initiative by the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan to strengthen human rights monitoring there.

The proposal follows allegations by the international monitoring group, Human Rights Watch, that Taleban soldiers killed at least two thousand people, many of them ethnic Hazaras, when they captured the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif in August.

The UN has authorised a parallel investigation into allegations that several thousand Taleban prisoners were massacred in Mazar-e-Sharif last year.