Taliban killings fuel fear, drive chaos
Scene remains chaotic at Afghanistan airport
KABUL, Afghanistan — Reports of targeted killings in areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fueling fears that they will return Afghanistan to the repressive rule they imposed when they were last in power, even as they urged imams to push a message of unity at Friday’s prayers.
Terrified that the new rulers would commit such abuses and despairing for their country’s future, thousands have raced to Kabul’s airport, where chaotic scenes continued unabated. People seeking to escape struggled to get past crushing crowds, Taliban airport checkpoints and U.S. bureaucracy. Video images showed crowds gathered in the dark outside the barbed-wire topped walls. Occasionally someone shot a stream of gunfire into the air.
What appeared to be American troops stood in the distance behind barbed wire. In one dramatic image, a U. S. Marine reached over the razor wire atop a barrier and plucked a baby by the arm from a crowd of people and pulled it up over the wall.
The Taliban say they have become more moderate since they last ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s and have pledged to restore security and forgive those who fought them in the 20 years since a U.S.-led invasion toppled them from power.
But many Afghans are skeptical, fearing that the Taliban will erase the gains, especially for women, achieved in the past two decades. Opposition to the takeover has also included street protests — acts of defiance that Taliban fighters have violently suppressed.
An Amnesty International report provided more evidence Friday that undercut the Taliban’s claims they have changed.
The rights group said that its
researchers spoke to eyewitnesses in Ghazni province who recounted how the Taliban killed nine ethnic Hazara men in the village of Mundarakht from July 4 to July 6. It said six of the men were shot, and three were tortured to death. Hazaras are Shiite Muslims who were previously persecuted by the Taliban and who made major gains in education and social status in recent years.
Amnesty International warned that more killings may have gone unreported because the Taliban cut cellphone services in many areas they captured.
Separately, Reporters without Borders expressed alarm at the news that Taliban fighters killed a family member of an Afghan journalist working for Germany’s Deutsche Welle on Wednesday. The broadcaster said fighters conducted house- to- house searches for their reporter, who had already relocated to Germany.
Meanwhile, a Norwaybased private intelligence group that provides information to the United Nations said it obtained evidence that the Taliban have rounded up Afghans on a blacklist of people they believe worked in key roles with the previous Afghan administration or with U.S.-led forces.
Inane mail, the executive director of the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses said the organization knew about several threat letters sent to Afghans.
A report from the group that was obtained by the AP included one of the letters, but the AP could not independently verify the group’s claims.
It’s not clear whether the reports of abuses indicate that Taliban leaders are saying one thing but doing another or whether they simply do not have full control over their forces. The scale and speed of their takeover seems to have challenged the leadership’s ability to control their fighters.
Under the Taliban’s previous rule, women were largely confined to their homes, television and music were banned, and public executions were held regularly. Amid the uncertainty, thousands have tried to flee the country.
Mohammad Naim, who said he used to be an interpreter for U.S. forces, has been in the airport crowd for four days trying to escape. He said he put his children on the roof of a car on the first day to save them from being crushed by the mass of people. He saw other children killed who were unable to get out of the way.
He urged others not to the come to the airport.
“It is a very, very crazy situation right now,” he said.
So far, 13 countries have agreed to host at-risk Afghans at least temporarily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Another 12 have agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others.