Afghanistan war: Taliban proving it is still the same brutal regime from the 1990s
The Taliban claims it has changed and Afghans have nothing to fear. But there’s already ample proof it’s just as evil as it was 20 years ago.
It’s barely been a week since Taliban fighters stormed the presidential palace in Kabul and declared victory over Afghanistan.
And while the militant regime, notorious for its brutal sharia law enforcement from 1996 to 2001, claims to have turned over a new leaf, cracks are already beginning to show.
The Taliban claims it will keep the peace in Afghanistan and has promised to not seek retribution or revenge against anyone who helped allied forces or the civil government.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid revealed his identity for the first time on Tuesday night and told journalists the Islamic group was not the same it was in the 1990s.
“All those in the opposite side are pardoned from A to Z,” he said.
“We will not seek revenge.”
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Mujahid said the new regime would be “positively different” from their horrific five years of governing, which was infamous for deaths by stoning, girls being banned from school and women from working in contact with men.
But those promises have already been broken.
Taliban going house-to-house searching for opponents
The Taliban are going house-to-house searching for opponents and their families, according to an intelligence document for the United Nations.
Taliban fighters have reportedly gained access to the government’s computer systems and have started hunting down anyone who went against them or helped the allied forces or civil government.
The Taliban have been conducting “targeted door-to-door visits” of people who worked with US and NATO forces, according to a confidential document by the UN’s threat assessment consultants.
The report, written by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, said militants were also screening people on the way to Kabul airport.
“They are targeting the families of those who refuse to give themselves up, and prosecuting and punishing their families ‘according to sharia law’,” Christian Nellemann, the group’s executive director, told AFP.
“We expect both individuals previously working with NATO/US forces and their allies, alongside with their family members to be exposed to torture and executions.”
Protesters met with deadly force
There have been isolated signs of opposition to the Taliban in parts of Afghanistan this week.
Small groups of Afghans waved the country’s black, red and green flags in Kabul and a handful of suburbs on Thursday to celebrate the anniversary of Afghanistan’s independence — on occasion in plain sight of patrolling Taliban fighters.
Taliban fighters have been meeting protesters with deadly force, firing guns to disperse dozens of Afghans in Jalalabad who waved the flag on Wednesday.
Video footage shot by Pajhwok Afghan News, a local news agency, showed protesters in the city who were carrying the Afghan flag fleeing with the sound of gunshots in the background.
“There were some troublemakers who wanted to create issues for us,” a Taliban militant present in Jalalabad at the time of the incident told Reuters. “These people are exploiting our relaxed policies.”
Images of women vandalised, destroyed
Numerous pictures and video have emerged of the Taliban vandalising and destroying pictures of uncovered women in Kabul.
Fears are growing women and girls will be subject to the same lack of freedoms they experienced in the late 1990s with the Taliban banning them from school and work.
In one video, a Taliban fighter uses white spray paint to cover the faces of women at a beauty salon.
And in photos taken in Kabul, an armed Taliban fighter was seen walking past images of women vandalised with black spray paint.
Journalists abused, fearing for their lives
The Taliban has insisted and journalists have nothing to fear under their new rule but several media workers have already reported being thrashed with sticks or whips when trying to record some of the chaos seen in Kabul in recent days.
A video posted online by a high-profile female journalist this week for a government-run television station offered a different reality to the Taliban’s new image of tolerance.
“Our lives are under threat,” Shabnam Dawran, an anchor in state-owned broadcaster RTA, said as she recounted being barred from the office.
“The male employees, those with office cards were allowed to enter the office but I was told that I couldn’t continue my duty because the system has been changed.”
Afghan woman TV news anchor stopped from working.
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 20, 2021
Shabnam Dawran, a news anchor with state channel RTA Pushto, has released a video saying she went to her office and was told to return home, despite assurances by the Taliban that women would be allowed to work under their rule pic.twitter.com/DUL5dpfist
Brutal humiliation punishments return
The Taliban also appears to be continuing its shaming of accused thieves with a video surfacing of a man with a blackened head tied to the back of a car.
The footage, posted to Instagram by UK journalist Rustam Wahab who received it from a contact in Kabul, showed the man with a blackened face standing in the back of a ute.
His hands appear to be tied behind his back and there is a rope around his chest holding him to the car.
A crowd of people surround him, many holding their phones to take photos and videos of the man.
The video of the man comes two days after confronting images of the same punishment were broadcast to the world.
Photos taken by journalist Bilal Sarwary showed men tarred in black with nooses tied around their necks, as soldiers paraded them through the streets in Herat.
The two men were flanked by armed soldiers, some of whom appear to be pulling on the ropes.
“Taliban accused these men of theft, their faces were coloured with black colour, to embarrass them and were paraded in Herat city after the Friday prayers,” Mr Sarwary tweeted.
Executions already being carried out
A horrifying video of the Taliban carrying out an execution on an Afghan police chief is in direct conflict with their promise to keep the peace and not seek retribution.
Haji Mullah Achakzai, who served in the Afghan Armed Forces, was employed as the police chief of the Badghis province near the city of Herat when he was captured by the Taliban.
Mr Achakzai was being hunted by the Taliban due to the way he stood up to the militant group and fought them alongside the Afghan army.
The execution video, posted to Twitter by a friend of Mr Achakzai on Thursday, showed the police chief kneeling in the sand with his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied in front of him.
He is surrounded by Taliban soldiers who then shoot him several times and leave his body lying in the sand.
The video was shared through a Taliban-related network and obtained by Afghan security adviser Nasser Waziri.
“He was surrounded by the Taliban and had no choice but to surrender last night,” Mr Waziri told Newsweek.
“The Taliban targeted Achakzai because he was a high-ranking intelligence official.”
Mr Waziri, who also worked for the Afghan government before it was overthrown by the Taliban on Sunday, said he too feared for his life.
— with AFP
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