Women could get junior roles, say Taliban
Female MPS being hunted: British official
The Taliban will not allow women to serve at ministerial level in the new Afghan government, a spokesman said.
Abbas Stanikzai, a Taliban official based in Doha, told the BBC that they may be offered less senior positions, however, if they had not served in the U.s.-backed government. He said that an “inclusive” government will be announced in the next two days.
A British MP warned that the Taliban are hunting female members of the former Afghan parliament to kill them.
Nusrat Ghani, a Conservative, had been in touch with an Afghan counterpart who has moved between safe houses three times since the Taliban seized Kabul two weeks ago.
“She has been told she will be killed if the Taliban get hold of her. They have already raided her home, they have already hanged her dog,” she told the BBC’S Today program.
“The best outcome she believed if she is caught by the Taliban is to be shot and killed. What she fears is being brutalized and her family being brutalized,” she said.
“She has been abandoned and if women like her are all killed, there won’t be any women left in Afghanistan to take up the positions the Taliban is offering them.”
U.K. MPS and lawyers threatened to take out an injunction to force the Boris Johnson government to grant visas to a group of women who have organized an escape convoy.
Afghan women MPS, judges and lawyers say they fear for their lives but they cannot leave because the Foreign Office has yet to authorize U.K. visas.
They believe their convoy could get safe passage to Pakistan, but cannot risk being turned back for not having proof they can travel on to the U.K.
Campaigners say more than half of Afghanistan’s 67 female MPS are still inside the country after being turned away or unable to reach the Western evacuation from Kabul last week.
Afghanistan has been without a government since president Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Aug. 15.
Meanwhile the Taliban has surrounded the only remaining province resisting its rule, a senior leader said on Wednesday, calling on rebels to negotiate a settlement with the group.
Since the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, mountainous Panjshir has been the only province to hold out against the Islamist group, although there has also been fighting in neighbouring Baghlan province between Taliban and local militia forces.
Under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud, son of a former Mujahedeen commander, several thousand members of local militias and remnants of army and special forces units have been holding out against the Taliban.
In a recorded speech addressed to Afghans in Panjshir, senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Motaqi called on the rebels to put down their weapons.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is home for all Afghans,” he said.
Motaqi said the Taliban had made many efforts to negotiate with leaders of the opposition forces in Panjshir, “but unfortunately, unfortunately, without any result.”
Taliban forces are making preparations around the four sides of the Panjshir valley and there is no reason to fight, Motaqi said, adding that the anti-taliban forces should keep in mind that it had not been possible to defeat the Taliban even with the support of NATO and U.S. forces.
“But we are still trying to ensure that there is no war and that the issue in Panjshir is resolved calmly and peacefully,” Motaqi said.
The remarks came after at least seven Taliban fighters were killed during an attempt to advance into the valley, according to two resistance leaders.
A spokesman for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, which groups the forces in the Panjshir valley, said on Wednesday Taliban forces had launched an offensive two days ago, and had been attacking in three or four different areas but had so far been pushed back.
SHE HAS BEEN TOLD SHE WILL BE KILLED IF THE TALIBAN GET HOLD OF HER.