Taliban accused of killing pregnant police officer as US warns of Afghanistan civil war

Taliban militants in Afghanistan have reportedly shot dead a policewoman in a door-to-door execution. Warning: Graphic

A Taliban fighter stands guard as people move past him at a market with currency exchange in Kabul. Picture: AFP

Taliban militants in Afghanistan have reportedly shot dead a policewoman in front of her husband and children.

The woman, named in local media as Banu Negar, was killed at the family home in Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province, the BBC reports.

Sources told the BBC that the Taliban beat and shot Negar dead in front of her husband and children on Saturday.

Banu Negar was reportedly murdered by the Taliban.

The woman’s family say Negar, who worked at the local prison, was eight months pregnant.

Family members showed the BBC graphic images of blood spattered on a wall and a body with a heavily disfigured face.

Taliban forces have reportedly been going down door-to-door hunting for former members of the Afghan security forces or allies of the West.

The Taliban told the BBC they had no involvement in Negar’s death.

Spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said: “We are aware of the incident and I am confirming that the Taliban have not killed her, our investigation is ongoing.”

AFGHANISTAN FACES CIVIL WAR, SAYS US

Taliban fighters advanced deep into the last holdout province of Panjshir on Sunday (local time), as America’s top general warned Afghanistan faces a wider civil war that will be a breeding ground for terrorism.

Following their overnight coup last month — and celebrations when the last US troops departed after 20 years of war — the Taliban are now bent on crushing resistance forces defending the last stronghold in the mountainous Panjshir Valley.

The Taliban, who rolled into Kabul three weeks ago at lightning speed, are yet to finalise their new regime.

But US General Mark Milley questioned whether they can consolidate power as they seek to shift from a guerrilla force of insurgents to a government.

Afghan anti-Taliban uprising forces in Panjshir province are being targeted by the Taliban in an attempt to crush the resistance movement. Picture: AFP

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley (R). General Milley said Aghanistan is on the brink of civil war. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

“I think there’s at least a very good probability of a broader civil war,” said Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a bleak assessment.

“That will then in turn lead to conditions that could, in fact, lead to a reconstitution of al-Qaeda or a growth of ISIS (Islamic State group),” he told Fox News.

It comes as Taliban official Bilal Karimi on Sunday (local time) reported heavy clashes in Panjshir, and while resistance fighters insist they have the Islamists at bay, analysts warned they are struggling.

The Italian aid agency Emergency said Taliban forces had reached the Panjshir village of Anabah, where they run a surgical centre.

“Many people have fled from local villages in recent days,” Emergency said in a statement, adding it was continuing to provide medical services and treating a “small number of wounded”.

Unconfirmed reports suggested the Taliban had seized other areas too.

Both sides claim to have inflicted heavy losses on the other.

The Afghan resistance movement, a member pictured here, has a geographical advantage in the Panjshir Valley, but Taliban forces have more weaponry. Picture: AFP

The Panjshir Valley, surrounded by jagged snow-capped peaks, offers a natural defensive advantage, with fighters melting away in the face of advancing forces, then launching ambushes firing from the high tops down into the valley.

But the Taliban seized a huge arsenal of weapons left behind by the US withdrawal and the collapse of the Afghan army.

Former vice-president Amrullah Saleh, who is holed up in Panjshir alongside Ahmad Massoud — the son of legendary anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud — warned of a grim situation.

Saleh in a statement spoke of a “large-scale humanitarian crisis”, with thousands “displaced by the Taliban onslaught”.

An Afghan woman protester argues with a member of the Taliban during a protest in Herat. Picture: AFP

TALIBAN ENFORCE ROBES, VEILS, SEGREGATION FOR FEMALE STUDENTS

Afghanistan’s new rulers have pledged women will be allowed to attend university as long as classes are segregated by sex or at least divided by a curtain, the Taliban’s education authority said in a lengthy document issued on Sunday (local time).

Female students must also wear an abaya (robe) and niqab (face-veil), as opposed to the even more conservative burqa mandatory under the previous Taliban regime.

They also ordered that female students should only be taught by other women, but if that was not possible then “old men” of good character could fill in.

“Universities are required to recruit female teachers for female students based on their facilities,” the decree said, adding that men and women should use separate entrances and exits.

A woman holds a placard reading "Rights and success of women should be protected" as she takes part in a rally in support of Afghanistan's women in Paris. Picture: AFP

Women must also end their lesson five minutes earlier than men to stop them from mingling outside.

They must then stay in waiting rooms until their male counterparts have left the building, according to the decree issued by the Taliban higher education ministry.

“Practically, it is a difficult plan — we don’t have enough female instructors or classes to segregate the girls,” said a university professor, who asked not to be named.

“But the fact that they are allowing girls to go to schools and universities is a big positive step,” he told AFP.

Afghan women take part in a protest march for their rights under the Taliban rule in the downtown area of Kabul. Picture: AFP

The decree applies to private colleges and universities, which have mushroomed since the Taliban’s first rule ended in 2001.

During that period, girls and women were mostly excluded from education because of rules regarding same-sex classrooms and the insistence they had to be accompanied by a male relative whenever they left the house.

In recent years burqas and niqabs have largely vanished from the streets of Kabul, but are seen more frequently in smaller cities and towns.

Defiant Afghan women held a rare protest saying they were willing to accept the all-encompassing burqa if their daughters could still go to school under Taliban rule. Picture: AFP

Over the past 20 years, since the Taliban were last in power, university admission rates have risen dramatically, particularly among women.

Before the Taliban returned, women studied alongside men and attended seminars with male professors.

The decree comes as private universities prepare to open on Monday.

Dozens of women protested for a second day in Kabul on the weekend to demand the right to work and inclusion in the government, with social media clips showing Taliban fighters attempting to disperse the demonstrators.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Taliban fighters violently suppressed a women’s protest by beating the women with rifle butts and metal clubs to disperse them, the first concrete evidence of harsh treatment of women by the group.

An Afghan woman hawker attempts to sell pens to commuter traffic in Kabul. Picture: AFP

TALIBAN STOPS PLANES OF EVACUEES LEAVING

At least four planes containing hundreds of evacuees seeking to flee Taliban rule have been grounded for days, officials said on Sunday (local time).

An Afghan official at the airport, which is in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, said the passengers, who are Afghans, did not have passports or visas and so were not technically allowed to leave the country.

He said those passengers had gone home or wer staying in hotels until they could sort out their paperwork.

This handout satellite image released by Maxar Technologies shows satellite imagery of the Mazar-i-Sharif and grounded planes at the airport in northern Afghanistan. Picture: AFP

However, AP reports that a top official on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee said there were Americans on the planes and by not letting the planes take off the Taliban was “holding them hostage”.

Even after withdrawing all their troops the US promised to continue working with the Taliban to ensure that everyone who wished to leave Afghanistan coud do so.

The Afghan official, who wished to remain anonymous, fears that the four grounded planes will turn into a hostage situation with the Taliban demanding “more and more, whether it be cash or legitimacy as the government of Afghanistan.”

The planes in question at the small airport, which only recently started international flights, were headed to Qatar.