Taliban ‘rape gangs’ hunting girls as young as 12

Taliban gangs are targeting children as young as 12, “going door-to-door” as they hunt for sex slaves after conquering Afghanistan.

Afghan women take part in a gathering at a hall in Kabul on August 2, 2021 against the claimed human rights violations on women by the Taliban regimen in Afghanistan. Picture: Sajjad Hussain/AFP

Taliban gangs are targeting children as young as 12 as they hunt for sex slaves after conquering Afghanistan.

Chilling reports have emerged as the fighters stormed across the country and seized Kabul at a speed which has stunned the West, The Sun reports.

The jihadi army have seized the Afghan capital — bringing an end to a rampage which has humiliated US President Joe Biden and much of the West.

Women and girls are believed to be some of the most at risk people under the new Taliban regimen — despite their attempts to give off a more modern persona.

They were brutalised and oppressed — with cruel tortures and public executions — when the militant group ruled Afghanistan in the 90s.

And it appears the Taliban are bringing back their vile ways amid reports they are forcing marriages and demanding lists of women and girls.

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Taliban fighters have swept across Afghanistan and taken Kabul. Picture: AFP

Taliban warlords reportedly view unmarried — or widowed — women and girls aged 12 to 45 as “qhanimat”, spoils of war to be divided among their fighters.

Afghans pouring into Kabul as refugees fleeing the march of the militants told stories of how commanders demanded they turn over women and girls to become their “wives” and be raped.

They also told of how civilians and captured soldiers were murdered by the Taliban, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Taliban officials have denied the group is enforcing sexual slavery — and claims that such actions are against the rules of Islam.

However, such practices were rampant the last time that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.

And last month it was revealed Taliban officials had published a decree ordered local leaders to turn over lists of young girls and widows under 45.

Faiz Mohammed Noori and his family fled from their home in Baghlan seeking solace in Kabul.

However, before the city’s fall, he told NBC: “Kabul is also not safe. If they take over Kabul, they’re taking your daughters, your wife, they don’t care.”

Other reports of the new oppression of women in Afghanistan includes pictures of females on shop fronts in Kabul being painted over by terrified shop keepers.

And there have been reports of women-centric shops having notices pasted on them by the Taliban warning them not to enter or they would “face the consequences”.

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A US soldier points his gun as they protect Kabul airport. Picture: AFP

‘Going door-to-door looking for young girls’

Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan politician and journalist, revealed some of the horrors which she has heard occurring as the Taliban bore down on Kabul.

“The gouging of a woman’s eyes in front of her terrified family; girls as young as 12 wrenched from the arms of their weeping mothers to become sex slaves for Taliban ‘warriors’; men punished or even killed for ‘offences’ as simple as listening to the ‘wrong’ music, or for daring to be ‘educated’,” she wrote for The Daily Mail.

She added: “In some villages, Taliban recruits are going door-to-door looking for young girls to marry against their will, forcing them into a life of sexual servitude.

“So determined are they that no virgin will escape their clutches that they check drawers, wardrobes and even suitcases in homes where desperate mothers deny they have young daughters to ensure they are telling the truth.”

Afghan women take part in a gathering at a hall in Kabul on August 2, 2021 against the claimed human rights violations on women by the Taliban regimen in Afghanistan. Picture: Sajjad Hussain/AFP

Taliban fighters have already reportedly shot dead a woman wearing “tight clothes” and some areas women have been told they cannot leave home without a male chaperone.

There are unverified reports a woman has been sentenced to be stoned to death in Samangan.

And the Taliban’s atrocities against women are well documented.

Militants in 2016 beheaded a woman who went shopping on her own, and a woman in 2015 was stoned to death in a shallow grave for having sex with her boyfriend.

Video captured earlier this year showed an unnamed woman screaming as she was whipped by a Taliban fighter accused of talking to a man on the phone.

And in one of the most infamous pictures ever captured of Taliban brutality, a woman named Zarmina, a mum-of-five, was executed in the middle of a football stadium in Kabul in 1999.

The speed of the Taliban’s victory has shaken the world and came just weeks after troops from the US, UK and other NATO countries left Afghanistan.

Twenty years after they were ejected by the US and its allies in the wake of 9/11 they are now back in power.

‘Taliban recruits are going door-to-door looking for young girls to marry against their will’. Picture: Sajjad Hussain/AFP

Taliban forces swept into Kabul as the government fled and have taken control as Western nations desperately tried to airlift out their last staff from embassies.

Horrific videos showed thousands of people swarming towards Kabul airport as they desperately begged for help while Western planes took off – some clinging to landing gear and plunging to their deaths.

Boris Johnson has blamed the US for the advancement of the Taliban in Afghanistan, claiming President Biden “accelerated” their control.

The UK prime minister said the “difficult” situation had been exacerbated by the President’s decision to withdraw troops from the war-torn country.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country – saying he did so to “prevent a flood of bloodshed” and to stop the destruction of Kabul.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed work was underway to evacuate Australian and Afghan workers from Kabul amid the ongoing crisis.

Latest pictures from Kabul Airport. People are on their own now while the world watches in silence. Only sane advise to Afghan people…RUN pic.twitter.com/RQGw28jFYx

— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) August 16, 2021

Mr Morrison declined to go into details about the rescue, instead issuing a stark concession that the government may not be able to get everyone home.

“The scenes from Kabul have been absolutely heartbreaking. It’s a sobering day for everyone and particularly those who have given so much over the past 20 years and most notably those 41 who were lost,” he said on Tuesday during a press conference.

“I want you to know that we will continue to do everything we can for those who have with us, as we have to this day. But I want to talk openly to veterans that despite our best efforts, I know that support won‘t reach all that it should.

“We wish it were different.”

Not a scene of Hollywood, it’s Just #Kabul air port, people want to run away, after the Capture of Kabul by the #Talibans #Afghanistan
By: @Mukhtarwafayee pic.twitter.com/ZLYieJm9mX

— AÅ›vaka - آسواکا News Agency (@AsvakaNews) August 16, 2021

The Taliban appeared to offer an amnesty for government forces and said they want a “peaceful transfer of power”.

“No one’s life, property and dignity will be harmed and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk,” the Taliban said.

But questions remain about whether the Taliban leadership is able to control troops on the ground and prevent them taking revenge.

When the Taliban last entered Kabul in 1996 after first seizing power, they tortured a former President then dragged him into the streets and hanged him.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission