3 KILLED AS TALIBAN FACE FIRST PROTESTS; AIRLIFTS RAMPED UP
UAE hosting ousted Afghan president on ‘humanitarian grounds’ even as he says he’s in talks to return to the country
KABUL: At least three people were killed in anti-Taliban protests in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, witnesses said, as the militant group moved to create a government and Western countries ramped up evacuations from a chaotic Kabul airport.
The deaths mar the Taliban’s efforts to consolidate Islamist rule and their promises of peace following their sweep into the capital. They have said they will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
The witnesses said the deaths in Jalalabad took place when local residents tried to install Afghanistan’s national flag at a square in the city, some 150km from the capital on the main road to Pakistan.
There were also more than a dozen people injured after Taliban militants opened fire on protesters in the eastern city, two witnesses and a former police official told Reuters.
Video footage also showed the Taliban firing into the air and attacking people with batons to disperse the crowd. Babrak Amirzada, a reporter for a local news agency, said he and a TV cameraman from another agency were beaten up by the Taliban as they tried to cover the unrest. Taliban spokesmen were not immediately reachable for comment.
The Jalalabad incident also had a domino effect, and protests soon spread to other regions, reports said. Hundreds took to the streets in Khost province in the east, according to Al-Jazeera.
KABUL/DUBAI: Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country as it toppled to the Taliban, was on Wednesday seeking refuge in the UAE, as the hardliners pledged a different rule from two decades ago.
Ghani flew out of Afghanistan on Sunday when the militants were closing in on the capital Kabul, sealing the Taliban’s rapid victory and a return to rule two decades after they were ousted by a US-led invasion.
On Wednesday, the UAE said it was hosting Ghani and his family “on humanitarian grounds”, in the first confirmation of his whereabouts.
Later, the ousted Afghan president addressed his nation from the Gulf country. “I am currently in the emirates so that [it] might have already stopped the bloodshed and chaos, and currently, I am in talks to return to Afghanistan,” he said. He said that had left Kabul only to prevent “bloodshed” and denied news reports that he took large sums of money with him as he departed the presidential palace.
Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan has accused Ghani of stealing millions of dollars from state funds and has called on international police to arrest him. Ghani’s escape on Sunday had sparked a buzz when it was widely reported that he had fled with several cars and a helicopter stuffed with cash.
‘Ghani stole $169 million’
Afghanistan’s envoy to Tajikistan
Mohammad Zahir Aghbar told a news conference that Ghani “stole $169 million from the state coffers” and called his flight “a betrayal of the state and the nation”.
The Taliban have offered a pledge of reconciliation, vowing no revenge against opponents and to respect women’s rights - but there are huge concerns about their brutal human rights record as tens of thousands of Afghans are still trying to flee their regime.
Meanwhile, speculation grew throughout Wednesday over whether the Taliban group would eventually announce the arrival of its top most leaders in the capital city of Kabul.
Wednesday was almost as turbulent for Afghans as it has been over the past few days, with three people getting killed at anti-Taliban protests in Jalalabad,
American troops firing crowd-control gunshots at the Kabul airport amid frenetic evacuation operations, and Taliban fighters destroying a statue in Bamiyan city.
US troops guarding evacuation efforts at Kabul airport fired some shots in the air overnight to control crowds, but there were no indications of casualties or injuries, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday.
Evacuation operations in Kabul gain momentum
More than 2,200 diplomats and civilians have been evacuated from Afghanistan on military flights, a western security official said on Wednesday.
At least 17 people were wounded on Wednesday in a stampede at a gate to the airport,
a Nato security official said. Civilians seeking to leave had been told not to gather unless they had a passport and visa to travel, he said, adding that he had not heard any reports of violence by Taliban fighters at the airport.
Britain said it managed to bring out about 1,000 people a day while Germany flew 130 people out. France said it had moved out 25 of its nationals and 184 Afghans and Australia said 26 people have arrived on its first flight back from Kabul.
Dark days return as Taliban again blow up a statue
KABUL: The Taliban have blown up the statue of a Shia militia leader who had fought against them during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, according to photos circulating
on social media on Wednesday.
The statue in Bamiyan city depicted Abdul Ali Mazari, a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1996, when the Islamic militants seized power from rival warlords. Mazari was a champion of Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara minority, Shias who were persecuted under the Sunni Taliban’s earlier rule.
The statue stood in the capital city of the Bamiyan province, where the Taliban infamously blew up two massive 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in 2001, shortly before the United States-led invasion that drove them from power.
The Taliban claimed the Buddhas violated Islam’s prohibition on idolatry.
The Taliban returned to power last weekend after capturing
much of the country in a matter of days, less than three weeks before the US plans to complete its troop withdrawal.
The Taliban have promised a new era of peace and security, saying they will forgive those who fought against them and grant women full rights under Islamic law, without elaborating. But many Afghans are deeply sceptical of the group, especially those who remember its previous rule, when it imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
At that time, women were largely confined to their homes, television and music were banned, and suspected criminals were flogged or executed in public.
The group also hosted Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the years before the September 11, 2001 attacks.