Reports of targeted killings renew fears of Taliban
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—Reports of targeted killings in areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fuelling 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 de facto rulers would commit such abuses and despairing for their country’s future, thousands have raced to Kabul’s airport and border crossings following the Taliban’s stunning blitz through Afghanistan. In one dramatic image, a U.S. Marine providing airport security reached over razor wire atop a barrier and plucked a baby by the arm from a crowd of people and pulled it up over the wall.
Others have taken to the streets to protest the takeover — acts of defiance that Taliban fighters have violently suppressed.
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. Ahead of Friday prayers, leaders urged imams to use sermons to appeal for unity and urge people not to flee the country.
But many Afghans are skeptical, fearing that the Taliban will erase the gains, especially for women, achieved in the past two decades. An Amnesty Insearchers ternational report provided more evidence Friday that undercut the Taliban’s claims they have changed.
The rights group said its respoke to witnesses 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.
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 houseto-house searches for their reporter, who had already relocated to Germany.
Meanwhile, a Norway-based 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.